Re: Rather, DSSLs increase modularity, productivity

[Michael Vanier <address@hidden>]

> Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 10:53:27 -0800
> From: "Brent Fulgham" <brent.fulgham@xpsystems.com>
> 
> > One of my biggest reservations about the newest crop of Handley-Milner
> > fpls is that they make useful metaprogramming almost impossible.
> 
> Oh, I disagree strongly with this assertion.  For example:
> 
> 1)  The C-- project is a compiler that converts "C--" input code to appropriate assembly
> instructions, and it's coded in Ocaml.  (http://www.cminusminus.org)

So you can write a compiler in ocaml.  That isn't metaprogramming as we are
using the term here.  Ocaml is a *great* language for writing compilers in,
BTW.

> 
> 2)  ML (Meta-Language) was originally designed as a metaprogramming tool.
> 

I don't think so.  ML was the meta-language for a theorem prover called LCF
(logic for computable functions).  meta-language != metaprogramming.

> 3)  Please read through Graydon Hoare's "One-Day-Compilers" talk (http://www.venge.net/graydon/talks/mkc/html/mgp00001.html) on implementing program generating programs in OCaml.  (Subtitle:  "How I learned to stop worrying and love static metaprogramming."
> 

That's more like it.  You're right on this count.  There are also
experimental versions of ocaml and haskell to do template metaprogramming.

Mike