OT: Ocaml?

[Donn Cave]

Quoth Paul Rubin <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid>:
| Arne Koewing <ark at gmx.net> writes:
|>> Anyone here use OCAML?  How do you like it?  Is it a language a
|>> Pythonista can learn to love?  From what little I've seen, it looks
|>> interesting, but I haven't actually tried installing or using it yet.
|> Yes and I think it's a great language, but it's a little bit harder
|> to start learning it. (you must learn how to read the types).
|> But you get a very 'save' language with a very  efficient compiler.
|
| Do you find that the strict type system gets in your way like it does
| in Java?

I have used ocaml only casually, and Java never, but one thing
that has worked for me is sort of a functional counterpart of
OOP, ``partial application.''

 let multiply a b = a * b
 let double = multiply 2

So supposing I want something like Python's file object.

 let read_file fp sz = ...
 let write_file fp data sz = ...
 let make_file_file fp =
   {
     read = read_file fp;
     write = write_file fp
   }
 let f = make_file_file (open filename) in
   let data = f.read 512
     ...

 let read_buffer buffer sz = ...

The point being that the type system, though probably stricter
than Java's, does allow ways to conveniently implement the same
interface for radically different types, in this case with a
feature that's just a basic natural part of any functional
programming language.  Maybe Java could do the same?

Then there is a lot of stuff in Objective CAML's module system
that directly addresses type issues, and it also has a fairly
complicated OOP system.

	Donn Cave, donn at drizzle.com