From: Brian H. <bri...@ql...> - 2003-02-25 21:38:57
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On Tue, 25 Feb 2003, Nicolas Cannasse wrote: > The current goal is not to put every existing (although very used) ocaml > library into the ExtLib. For example PXP, which is a very good XML parser - > and everybody is using XML in today applications - should remain a separate > library. The ExtLib should remain somehow small :) > I agree that having six different tree implementations- or even just six different map implementations- isn't usefull. But one of the things I like about Java is it's (bloated, huge) libraries. Yes, it makes Java have a footprint that would shock a brontosaurus, but it also makes Java programmers more likely to use the libraries that exist. Why write your own (badly implemented and non-conformant) XML parser when you can just use the (well implemented and conformant) standard XML parser? Why write your own configuration file parser when you can use XML? Etc. Huge libraries- like GUI interface or 3D libraries- should be on their own. But unless we're talking megabytes of library here, I'd perfer to download and install *one* library, not thirty. And, IMHO, XML parsing is small enough and there are enough possible uses for it that I'd like it in the library. Note that the definition for inclusion shouldn't just be *current* uses, but also *potiential* uses were it everywhere. Take XML for example- it probably isn't a bad format for configuration files, should an XML parser be handy. It's almost certainly not worth it to write an XML file parser just to parse your configuration file, but if it was there, people would use it for that. Brian |