[ori_b]

Ocaml: Love the language, but I don't think I've seen a worse standard library. I don't mean that it's sparse -- I don't mind that so much. I mean that it's really just badly designed. For example, global, mutable variables in a functional language? Really?

Thankfully, Jane Street and the Batteries Included projects are supplementing it, but I'm still of the opinion that the standard library should be torn out and replaced with something nice.

[avsm]

It's important to remember that the standard library is the compiler standard library. It's actually very useful to have it be so minimal when compiling OCaml to odd embedded and microkernel targets (such as our own MirageOS at https://openmirage.org).

We took an explicit decision not to use the compiler standard library in Real World OCaml, and instead work using the Core stdlib from Jane Street. I think it's quite a testament to the modular power of OCaml that they managed to not only separate the standard library from millions of lines of internal code, but also to make it so usable for external users in a brief 12 months.

There are a lot more developments coming soon, of course: see my groups research page at http://ocaml.io for some of the projects. I've been lapse at updating it in the past few months, but normal service shall resume very shortly...

[edwintorok]

Even if you don't use / plan to use the Core stdlib, the book is quite useful.

[technomancy]

I was pretty impressed with how a single `open Core.Std` line you can basically do the whole "tear out the standard library and replace with something nice" on a per-module basis. Unfortunately it has the side-effect of making small native binaries impossible, but depending on the project it's nice to have the choice.

[avsm]

> has the side-effect of making small native binaries impossible

fear not; support for module aliases in signatures will resolve that problem quite soon, and quite elegantly too.

[technomancy]

That would be fantastic; looking forward to it.