SML#: a new Standard ML family programming language

http://www.pllab.riec.tohoku.ac.jp/smlsharp/

by 0x1997 • 13 years ago

55 26 13 years ago

pllab.riec.tohoku.ac.jp

cyrus_3• 13 years ago

Strange choice of name given that it doesn't build on Microsoft's CLI at all.

616c2• 13 years ago

You mean CLR?

cyrus_3• 13 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Language_Infrastructure

neverm0re• 13 years ago

'In 1993, Atsushi Ohori extended the Standard ML of New Jersey compiler at Kansai Laboratory of Oki Electric, and named the experimental prototype SML# of Kansai. [..] The name SML# of Kansai symbolizes the field selector #〈label〉, which was given a polymorphic type for the first time by this compiler.'

http://www.pllab.riec.tohoku.ac.jp/smlsharp/docs/1.0/en/Ch1....

It predates it, actually.

Mindless2112• 13 years ago

"Functional record update" [1] was the one missing feature that bothered me most about Standard ML. If you want to change one element in a record, you've got to specify explicitly that every other element in the record didn't change.

[1] http://www.pllab.riec.tohoku.ac.jp/smlsharp/docs/1.0/en/Ch4....

mackwic2• 13 years ago

You can also update one field in OCaml, I really like this language.

p4bl0• 13 years ago

I wouldn't use "update" since it imply that there is a modification of the value in the original record. This is possible with mutable field of course, but I think the feature of OCaml (and apparently, SML#) you're talking about is the `with` keyword:

    # type foo = { bar: int ; baz: string };;
    type foo = { bar : int; baz : string; }
    # let a = { bar = 42; baz = "hello" };;
    val a : foo = {bar = 42; baz = "hello"}
    # let b = {a with baz = "bye"};;
    val b : foo = {bar = 42; baz = "bye"}
    # a;;
    - : foo = {bar = 42; baz = "hello"}

alegrn2• 13 years ago

SML# is one of the lesser known SML implementations, although it's a quite good one. The only thing that I found impractical,... you can only link 32bit libs, which is very odd on todays 64bit Systems.

Nevertheless, the thing I like most at SML# is the excellent FFI. You can just pass SML-records or SML-functions to C. SML# is very powerful if you code your applications in SML and C.

silentOpen• 13 years ago

The recently released ocaml-ctypes <https://github.com/ocamllabs/ocaml-ctypes > library by Jeremy Yallop does something similar. It uses GADTs to represent the C type system in OCaml's type system with as-you-would-expect OCaml signatures. For example, you can pass an OCaml comparator to a C sort function that takes a function pointer and it works.

It's not quite as smooth, as far as I know, but it will soon include C header consumption and C stub generation to both improve binding accuracy/safety and remove dynamic paths for performance.

nnq2• 13 years ago

sorry to ask, but who uses SML nowadays and for what do they use it? (I know about it's descendants or languages influenced/inspired by it, like OCaml, F# and the less related Haskell, but nothing hits the news about SML projects.)

alegrn2• 13 years ago

Although SML is such a beautiful and pragmatic language and has many Compilers and Runtimes, I am not aware of any real world projects with impact other than the well-known SML compilers (Mlton, SMLNJ, MosML, Poly ... to only name a few).

Usage of SML results in very short, readable and efficient programs, so I wonder why there is only so little industry adoption.

thirsteh3• 13 years ago

Most of the people who would be using SML are using Haskell, hence why Robert Harper is so bitter, constantly writing blog posts about how much "Haskell sucks", and how "unsafe" it is.

edit: or OCaml, or F#.

Altenuvian• 13 years ago

adaption of ML style languages suffers from the unfamiliar syntax, the pretty steep learning curve for those trained in imperative dialects at 'java-school'.

at least when it comes to syntax mythryl might someday provide an option. its basically SML/NJ with a c-like syntax and multithreading support. still very much in development but looks promising: mythryl.org

that said Haskell certainly seems to be the winner of the current functional language trend.

renshaw• 13 years ago

I often use SML for writing games. The Functioning library (http://github.com/robsimmons/functioning) provides support for SDL and includes an SML port of Box2D.

rohshall• 13 years ago

Good to know about this alternative. SML was a great language, and deserves to live on. OCaml is not really a successor to SML because of its object-oriented features and its lack of backward compatibility to SML.

SML#: a new Standard ML family programming language

Related Stories