[MLton] Windows port of MLton using the Microsoft tools (e.g. without MinGW)

Wesley Terpstra wesley at terpstra.ca
Thu Jul 26 05:53:40 PDT 2007


On Jul 26, 2007, at 1:17 PM, Nicolas Bertolotti wrote:
> I’m interested in getting a Win64 version of MLton. Now the 64 bits  
> port for Linux (and also other targets as I could read some  
> messages about it on the mailing list) is getting stable, I guess  
> it should not be too complex to update the MinGW port of MLton for  
> Win64.
In contrast to skaller, I think this is the way forward. MinGW is a  
very thin wrapper that provides most of what a UNIX-ish app like  
MLton needs. As you can still link to and FFI to MS compiled code,  
there's little downside.
> Unfortunately, MinGW is not yet available for Win64. The gcc port  
> is definitely not stable (the binutils seem to run fine) and the  
> MinGW headers and libraries are still experimental.
Are you in a hurry? I'm sure that gcc for windows will work in the  
near future. Fixing any problems in the MinGW headers once gcc works  
seems like much less work than trying to port MLton and its  
dependencies to MS's compiler.
> The fact we need MinGW to use MLton on Windows seems to be an  
> obstacle in terms of portability and the fact it does not require  
> it anymore would make life (at least mine ;-)) easier.
How do you mean "does not require it anymore"? I'd not heard of  
anyone porting MLton to a non-gcc compiler?

In the meantime, 32-bit applications still work great (and use less  
memory). So unless need >2GB of memory in a MLton app, you're not  
missing much.

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