Re: [Ocaml-lib-devel] Future of ExtLib

[Bardur A. <oca...@sc...>]

On Thu, Dec 16, 2004 at 10:22:05AM +0100, Nicolas Cannasse wrote:

> Hi list,
> 
> It's been long time without activity on this list, I have been quite busy
> lately but I keep on fixing bugs when reports are coming sometimes ;). Right
> now the ExtLib acheivements are pretty good : I am a happy ExtLib user and I
> don't feel anymore when I write Ocaml that I miss all theses functions from
> Stdlib. That's good, and I hope you feel same.
> 
> As for the future, I am not certain which path we should follow. I tend to
> appreciate the current shape of ExtLib and I'm not wishing to include a lot
> more modules, but other people might think different. What I would like to
> be included in ExtLib would be small Xml and Date modules, but I'm not sure
> we can reach agreement on what should be put inside theses ;). Any insights
> or wishes are welcome !
> 

I am also quite happy with it as is, but there are a
couple of things I miss:

1) More flexible String functions, e.g.:

   - lchop_if: Only removes char if matching some set of
     chars (and *never* throws an exception). Actually,
     I'd probably rename lchop to lchop_any and add a
     "which-chars" argument to lchop. Alternatively, one
     could just use an optional argument for one lchop
     function.
     
   - nsplit should take an optional maximum-number-of-splits argument
   
   - rstrip/lstrip instead of just strip
   
   - A few more less important, but nonetheless occasionally useful
   additions

   Currently, I'm very busy with Real Life(tm), but I hope to
   submit patches for comment/inclusion in the not too
   distant future.

   
2) Path manipulation: An extended and "regularized" (think
   'principle of least surprise') version of Filename.

   In fact, I have a "Path" module up at

     http://www.imada.sdu.dk/~bardur/personal/45-programs/index.html
     (search for "ocaml-path")

   with various commonly needed functions which I'd love
   feedback on. It's currently UNIX-only, but that can be
   remedied (however, probably not by me since I don't
   have any other platforms to test on, and probably don't
   have sufficient knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of
   those platforms anyway).

   Clearly, this needs to be as cross-platform as possible
   before inclusion is even considered.   

Cheers,   
   
-- 
Bardur Arantsson
<ba...@im...>
<ba...@sc...>

- Who do you think actually compresses and decompresses an MP3 or
a DivX file? Magical forest smurfs?
                                  bugmaster | http://kuro5hin.org