Re: [Sml-implementers] compilation management

[Ken F. L. <kf...@it...>]

Stephen Weeks <sw...@in...> writes:
> I would be interested to hear from other groups (Moscow ML, Poly/ML, ML Kit,
> TILT) about the compilation management system they use.

Let me reply about what Moscow ML and (partly) ML Kit use.

Moscow ML traditionally uses ordinary make and the distribution
includes a simpleminded dependency analysis tool.  But if you are
willing to commit to GNU make it is possible to make a generic
Makefile that will "just work" in most projects (it does take quite a
bit of make hacking).

I dislike make as much as any other sane person.  But it is standard
tool that many programmers know how to use.  And it is easy to
integrate components writen in another programming language such as C.

But Moscow ML 2.00 also came with mosmlpm[1], which is a project manager
that accepts the same project files (PM files) as the ML Kit (almost).
PM files are quite simple, the grammar is:

   pm ::=  "import" imports "in" body "end" 
       |   body

   imports ::= path.pm imports
            |  empty
  
   body ::=  path.sml body
         |   path.sig body
         |   "local" body "in" body "end" body
         |   empty

Where path is a unix-style path (much to Doug Currie's grief ;-), and
we also allow SML-style comments.  Example:

  import Ast.pm Lexer.pm Parser.pm in
     Typechecker.sml
     local Optimizer.sml in
       Compiler.sml
     end
  end

I like PM because it is *simple* and it is simple to explain what the
semantics of a PM file is (even with respect to side-effects!).  And
it is simple to implement.

I think PM is a good candidate for a common exchange format.  The only
flows I know of is:

  * No way to specify compiler options for a specific file (or a whole
    .pm file).  My suggestion is to extend the format to allow
    something like:

        | RedBlack.sml [mosml : "-orthodox", mlkit : "-inline 40 -fix-reduce"]

  * No way to make a big library pm file that exports other pm files
    (for example for the Basis Lib).


Martin Elsmann is the designer behind PM and I'll let him correct any
mistake I've made in the description above.


Cheers,

--Ken

[1] Unfortunately is mosmlpm still unannounced and a bit hard to find.
But those who are interested can find a quick prototype in
mosml/src/mosmlpm in the Moscow ML distribution.