[ocaml-platform] on the need and design of OCaml namespaces

[Alain Frisch]

On 02/26/2013 04:43 PM, Yaron Minsky wrote:
> I think we do.  What we want is essentially the same thing that we
> need to do when OCaml opens Pervasives by default.  We simply have
> another module that we wish to open by default.

Do you agree that this need of importing values automatically in the 
global scope is quite specific to "stdlib" replacements and to basic 
"infrastructure" libraries?  For me, this would justify some "side" 
support for the feature under the form of a command-line option, if this 
can give the expected benefit without touching the language itself.  I 
expect that most of your code base does "open Core.Std", right?  What 
would be the problem of putting this information in the build system so 
that this module is opened by default (and maybe also to enable to 
corresponding "module/unit mapping" with my proposal)?  Generally 
speaking I agree that putting too much information in the build system 
is a bad idea, but here the point is precisely to provide the illusion 
that Core.Std is the standard library (for a specific code base) and to 
avoid one extra "open" statement.

There is default behavior of OCaml of opening Pervasives by default. 
This can be switched of.  Now if Core has to be thought as a different 
standard library, why should we require users to even write "open 
Core.Std" at all?  We should be able to arrange so that the compiler 
opens it by default as it usually opens Pervasives.

Again, for me, this is quite orthogonal to module name management (which 
can be useful to many libraries) and is rather specific to stdlib 
replacement / basic infrastructure libraries.


Alain