[MLton-user] why sml matters?

[Jesper Louis Andersen]

On the note of the SML Basis being a Clib:

I am aware of the "STL"/"Clib" argument. I would also like to state that
given the view of what the Basis library is, it is indeed extremely good.
There are few Basis Libraries which are so worked through as the SML Basis
is. The problem, as I state, is that people are nowadays accustomed to big
standard libraries, wether we like it or not. So there should at least be a
way to bring source code into your project easily -- which brings me to:

On the common build system:

I agree totally on the view that SML need a build system which can join them
together. Common Lisp implementations are quite different also and they
still manage to have an Open Source de-facto standard for publishing code,
namely the ASDF (Another System Definition Format -- IIRC). If things are
provided by the basis or are provided via a library is today mostly
irrelevant. Even Java could not get their libraries right. Hence the Apache
Foundations commons-* libraries for "stuff missing in the standard library".

I think you are right. One should mayhaps keep a small Basis Library and
provide most of the Missing functionality via libraries on top of that.
Perl's CPAN is what provides XML parsing capabilities to Perl, for example.


On 10/16/06, John Reppy <jhr at cs.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>
> On Oct 13, 2006, at 2:01 PM, mlton-user-request at mlton.org wrote:
>
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 22:50:32 +0200
> > From: "Jesper Louis Andersen" <jesper.louis.andersen at gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [MLton-user] why sml matters?
> > To: "Buday, Gergely Istvan" <gergely.buday at siemens.com>
> > Cc: mlton-user at mlton.org
> > Message-ID:
> >       <56a0a2840610121350i5f4932fej70e5b36ad4f4bf70 at mail.gmail.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> > It is always hard to give such advocacy. First, you have to split the
> > argument.
> >
> ...
> >
> > The Standard Basis Library of SML is somewhat of a failure, since
> > it is far
> > too small for a modern language. Since the standard does not define
> > anything
> > of value, the Basis has to make up for it. Unfortunately, it does
> > not. It
> > lacks, among things: Data structures (A decent finite map and a
> > decent set
> > structure at least, please), Combinatoric parsing, Output Pretty-
> > printing,
> > XML processing, database integration, standardized FFI, effective
> > stream
> > processing, persistence constructions, string handling, etc. It is
> > rather
> > hard to argue one should use SML when basic stuff is lacking from the
> > Standard Library. Java might be a very weak language (I think it
> > is), but it
> > makes up for it with a great standard library.
>
> I think that it is important to understand that the goal of the Basis
> library
> is to be a "Basis" (think Clib, not STL).  For the most part, we
> defined types
> and operations that required special support either the compiler or
> runtime
> system (or were ubiquitous, like lists and options).  We specifically
> did not
> want to define higher-level modules, like data structures, XML parsing,
> higher-level network protocols, etc., because the design and
> implementation
> spaces are large and it is hard to specify one right version (e.g., the
> SML/NJ Library has three different implementations of finite maps).
> I do think that the Basis should include standard signatures for some
> data structures, but leave implementations up to higher-level libraries.
>
> What we really need is a portable build solution so that libraries,
> like the
> SML/NJ library, can be easily made available on every implementation  of
> SML.
>
>         - John
>
>
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