ocaml-lib-devel — Developer's mailing list

Re: [Ocaml-lib-devel] Ocaml indent?

[Chris H. <ch...@d6...>]

Please don't let this go the way of most community projects and get bogged 
down in indentation style and other meta issues.

Make some incredibly minimum directory layout suggestions and minimal 
project documentation (something like text file called "description.txt" in 
the root of each module).  Then get a ton of code up there.  Deal with the 
consequences later.  The number of community projects with intricate and 
beautiful submission specifications and no useful code or users far 
outweighs the number of useful projects bogged down by bad indentation and 
planning.

Chris

Re: [Ocaml-lib-devel] Ocaml indent?

[Brian H. <bri...@ql...>]

On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, Blair Zajac wrote:

> Brian Hurt wrote:
> I think in general this is a bad idea.  I would not want my code reindented
> upon commit.

I'm not that religous about indenting :-).  And I've dealt with formatting 
diasters- including one file that had been editted by three different 
people, in three different editors, using both unix and windows style 
tabbing, different indent levels, and different tab stops.  Which made me 
appreciate enforced standard indenting.

> 
> Also, this seems to mix style with real coding changes.  Many times, I
> perform two separate commits to make code reviews easier, one for
> coding changes, and one for style changes.
> 

Yep.  Nothing is more horrifying than seeing a log message that reads 
"fixed indenting, and a couple of bugs".  Because you know that the 
reindenting touched almost every single line of code, making diffs nigh on 
to impossible, and hiding what the real changes are.  Been there, done 
that too.

Brian

Re: [Ocaml-lib-devel] Ocaml indent?

[Blair Z. <bl...@or...>]

Brian Hurt wrote:
> 
> Something just occurred to me.  CVS has the ability to run a script on
> commits- explicitly, this is so you can run indent on code being
> committed.  For those who don't know, indent is a program which
> (re-)indents C code.  Allowing you to enforce convention like "no tabs",
> "curly braces on their own lines", etc.
> 
> If something like this existed for Ocaml, we could use to force indenting
> rules (once they are settled on).

I think in general this is a bad idea.  I would not want my code reindented
upon commit.

If there are commits that have poor coding style, then those could be pointed
out by the other developers and fixed in subsequent commits.

Also, this seems to mix style with real coding changes.  Many times, I perform
two separate commits to make code reviews easier, one for coding changes, and
one for style changes.

Best,
Blair

-- 
Blair Zajac <bl...@or...>
Plots of your system's performance - http://www.orcaware.com/orca/

Re: [Ocaml-lib-devel] Ocaml indent?

[Maxence G. <max...@in...>]

 
> Something just occurred to me.  CVS has the ability to run a script on 
> commits- explicitly, this is so you can run indent on code being 
> committed.  For those who don't know, indent is a program which 
> (re-)indents C code.  Allowing you to enforce convention like "no tabs", 
> "curly braces on their own lines", etc.
> 
> If something like this existed for Ocaml, we could use to force indenting 
> rules (once they are settled on).

Camlp4 could be used for this, but it loses comments in phrases :-(
If we want to put only comments between phrases, it could be what's needed.

-- 
Maxence Guesdon

[Ocaml-lib-devel] Ocaml indent?

[Brian H. <bri...@ql...>]

Something just occurred to me.  CVS has the ability to run a script on 
commits- explicitly, this is so you can run indent on code being 
committed.  For those who don't know, indent is a program which 
(re-)indents C code.  Allowing you to enforce convention like "no tabs", 
"curly braces on their own lines", etc.

If something like this existed for Ocaml, we could use to force indenting 
rules (once they are settled on).

Brian

[Ocaml-lib-devel] Re: [Caml-list] User library license

[Brian H. <bri...@ql...>]

Changing lists...

On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, Blair Zajac wrote:
> 
> I see a difference between a kernel which definitely can be made
> proprietary from language or core library extensions, which I see are
> just tools to make proprietary code.

I agree.  The kernel and compiler are GPL, the library is LGPL.  Exactly 
the situation that is on Linux- Linux and GCC are GPL, glibc is LGPL.

You can use the GPL'd GCC compiler to produce propreitary code just fine.  
You just can't reuse, or link with, the GPL'd code- so you can't include 
parts of the compiler in your proprietary project.

> I wouldn't have an issue with this.  I see getting improving the core
> language to be more important than license issues.  After all, these
> libraries are not

I agree- we have to work with the language as it is.

> 
> I would use the C++ Boost library as an example of people contributing to
> a high quality library.  Parts of the Boost library may be accepted by the
> C++ standards body for future standardization.  I would guess that many
> people would be proud to get their code into such a library

And this governed the license requirements.  They greatly increased the 
possibility of being included as a standard with the restictions they put 
down.  The C++ libraries have too many reimplementations- Microsoft, Sun, 
HP, IBM, GNU, etc.  All of whom have votes on the standards committee, and 
are disinclined to have to do more work than necessary to implement the 
standards.  Forcing them to rewrite large amounts of code is unplatable, 
and would likely cause them to veto the proposed library extensions.  On 
the other hand, if you give them an implementation (preferrably one that 
already works on their compiler), so that all they have to do is package 
up the library with the next release of their compiler, they'll be more 
likely to be in favor of the proposal.

Ocaml is a different situation.  With the possible exception of F#, there 
is only one implementation.

Brian

[Ocaml-lib-devel] COAN

[Brian H. <bri...@ql...>]

We seem to have two different views for this project.  Note that I give 
them names just so that I can talk about them, don't assume the names are 
finalized:

1) A library with the intention of becoming standard, or at least widely 
accepted (ExtLib), and

2) A common watering hole, where ocaml people can go to find out what 
libraries exist and how to get them (COAN, although I'd really like to 
change that C to a K- the Komprehensive Ocaml Archive Network?).

Extlib needs a standard license- preferably the same one that the standard
library already has.  KOAN doesn't need a standard library- each library
is independently licensed.  Extlib really needs some sort of standard
interface, and more rigorous commit procedures, while KOAN doesn't as
much.

I think we already have something like KOAN- it's the caml's hump.  I
myself am more interested in ExtLib myself.

Actually, in a private email, I was told that the main Ocaml developers 
were looking to make the ocaml distribution smaller.  In addition to 
seeing movement from ExtLib to the standard library, we might also see 
movement from the standard library to ExtLib.

Brian

[Ocaml-lib-devel] Greeting

[Brian H. <bri...@ql...>]

I'm on the list.  Who else is on here?

Brian