[Ocaml-lib-devel] Future of ExtLib

[Nicolas C. <war...@fr...>]

Hi list,

I'm pretty sure all of you have been reading the caml-list recently,

I had some private talks with Benjamin Geer concerning ExtLib. His point was
that if ExtLib was not just an extension to the ocaml stdlib but a full
replacement - including more modules and more functionality - then it will
fasten its spread and ease its usage. I kindof agree with him : currently
there is several ways of working with ExtLib, and you can have some part of
your project using stdlib while others parts are using ExtLib. That's
convenient, but in fact since we're keeping 99% compability with stdlib,
having the user to port the small parts of his code and then he can use all
extensions provided as if he was using stdlib seems to be a fair trade.
Of course this means some changes to current project, and that's why I would
like to get your comments and advices about this - I'm especialy interested
in current ExtLib's contributors opinions.
Concerning additionnals modules here's what's on my wish-list (which is
somehow also on my current todo-list) :
- base64 encode/decode
- abstract high level I/O with support for C basic types ( read_i16 ,
write_f16 ..... )
- zlib deflate/inflate written in pure OCaml.

Regards,
Nicolas Cannasse