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Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers

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Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers   Author:   Dwight VandenBerghe Email: dwight@pentasoft.com Date: 1998/07/28 Forums: comp.compilers Let's use the term "ML" to mean SML or Objective Caml. I'm a devotee of Ocaml, but I have SML/NJ installed and although I prefer the distribution, tools and overall implementation of Ocaml, I'd be happy to write in SML/NJ if Ocaml wasn't around. (I can't speak for Haskell, gofer, hugs, or any of the lazy languages. I think that there are different kinds of people, some of whom like things like deferred evaluation and other who like strict call-by-value. I'm decidedly in the latter camp; I like how clean strict evaluation is, how easy it is to understand exactly what is going on, and I find that I have to give a little of that up with Haskell. But your mileage may vary.) So although when I am writing about "ML" I am writing about Ocaml, what I say also applies, I think, to SML/NJ. So here is an unordered list of language features that see

Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers Why ML/OCaml are good for writing compilers Author: Dwight VandenBerghe Email: dwight@pentasoft.com Date: 1998/07/28 Forums: comp.compilers Let's use the term "ML" to mean SML or Objective Caml. I'm a devotee of Ocaml, but I have SML/NJ installed and although I prefer the distribution, tools and overall implementation of Ocaml, I'd be happy to write in SML/NJ if Ocaml wasn't around. (I can't speak for Haskell, gofer, hugs, or any of the lazy languages. I think that there are different kinds of people, some of whom like things like deferred evaluation

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