[MLton-user] language extensions

[Stephen Weeks]

> Given that MLton is asymptotically close to 100% in SML standard
> compliance and is rapidly approaching "fast enough".  Does the MLton
> team start to look outwards towards interesting extensions in Alice,
> SML/NJ, Haskell, OCaml, Moby, ...  as well as continued internal work on
> the compiler.
...
> Or on the other hand if the "goal" is strict compliance to the SML
> standard and within that context continue to improve the compiler to new
> levels of compiler wizardry...

My personal goal is to enable programmers to be as effective as
possible with MLton/SML.  I think that changes to the language are
*far* down the list of improvements that could be made in working
toward that goal.  To name some more valuable improvements off the top
of my head, in no particular order: IDE support, and interpreter/REPL,
fast incremental recompilation, library packaging and versioning, a
debugger, more libraries, more platforms, ability to generate shared
libraries, better documentation.  And of course, there are still some
situations where optimizer improvements would be nice :-).  There are
also a number of difficulties and drawbacks to language changes, which
pushes them even further down on my list (and, admittedly, makes me
rather dogmatic in rejecting them).

I'm not saying I think that <insert-language-feature-here> would be
useless or wouldn't help programmers.  But I do feel that SML is a
nice stopping point in the evolution of languages and that MLton/SML
is a nice platform from which to explore the many other directions for
making programmers effective.

So, just as MLton is often fast enough, SML is often expressive
enough, and the low-hanging fruit is elsewhere.

> During the annual survey it would be interesting to know the core MLton
> team's particular inclinations.

We'll get something in there.  Thanks for the suggestion.