Re: [Ocaml-lib-devel] Batteries Included

[David T. <Dav...@un...>]

Ok, as you prefer.

Let me sum everything up.

In my mind, Batteries Included is several things:
* building a comprehensive standard library for an extended distribution
of OCaml, from the standard library and existing libraries with
compatible licenses -- in this, draw inspiration from the Java or .Net
standard libraries, but probably without UI
* building a standard extended syntax for the same extended distribution
of OCaml
* customizing slightly the standard tools (ocamlc, ocamlopt, ocamlbuild,
etc.) to get them to use the aforementioned standard library & syntax
* marking as "standard" some very much needed tools (I'm thinking mostly
about findlib/ocamlfind and rlwrap, possibly menhir)

For information, there's currently a hiatus between Batteries Included
and Community OCaml, both of which have the same objectives and
different design choices. However, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to
resolve any problem shortly. I imagine that Community OCaml will end up
being the "full distribution" while Batteries Included will end up being
one or more modular GODI packages built on top of existing libraries.

Now, my current work starts on the library front, with ExtLib and yes,
not only your involvement is a possibility, it would even very much
appreciated. That work is three-fold: 
1. extending ExtLib without breaking compatibility 
2. documenting ExtLib as if it were the standard library
3. packaging ExtLib and the Inria standard library (and whatever will
join them), from the outside, so as to present a coherent structure.

You can find the current version of the code at
https://forge.ocamlcore.org/plugins/scmsvn/viewcvs.php/trunk/batlib/?root=batteries 
This code is experimental. You may also find a rather detailed list of
changes made and changes to be done at
https://forge.ocamlcore.org/plugins/scmsvn/viewcvs.php/trunk/doc/?rev=4&root=batteries 

As you may see, I already have made a number of additions to ExtLib. As
soon as they are tested, I will submit them as patches, one by one. I
hope I won't fall in the pitfall you underline, Richard, but don't
hesitate to watch me, as I'm prey to this kind of temptations :)

Cheers,
 David


On Fri, 2008-05-02 at 12:20 +0100, Richard Jones wrote:
> The trouble is that IRC doesn't make very much of a permanent record.
> 
> We'd just like to be involved - what changes are you planning to make?
> New functions?  If so, what new functions?  Bigger changes than that?
> 
> If these are just build changes, they can probably be confined to the
> 'Batteries Included' distribution, but if they involve significant
> changes to extlib, particularly ones which could create an extlib
> variant from a programmers point of view, then they should be
> discussed here.
> 
> Early discussion and small, early patches are much better than just
> dumping a huge patch on the project at the end (not that I'm
> suggesting you will do that, but I have seen this done to open source
> projects, and the results are not pretty).
> 
> Rich.
> 
-- 
David Teller
 Security of Distributed Systems
  http://www.univ-orleans.fr/lifo/Members/David.Teller
 Angry researcher: French Universities need reforms, but the LRU act brings liquidations.