From:	 David Mentre <David.Mentre@inria.fr>
To:	 lwn@lwn.net
Subject: Attn: Development Editor: Latest Caml Weekly News
Date:	 19 Sep 2001 09:50:23 +0200

Here is the latest Caml Weekly News, 12 to 19 September, 2001.

======================================================================
1) Ensemble 1.2
----------------------------------------------------------------------

A new distribution of Ensemble is now available. 
It is downloadable from:
   www.cs.huji.ac.il/~orodeh
Once NFS problems are solved in Cornell, the Ensemble
main site at: 
   www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/Projects/Ensemble
will also be updated.  

The release notes are:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
CHANGES

1. A new C-interface, under sub-directory ce. It works under all supported 
   platforms. 
 
  The README from the CE subdirectory:

    The CE directory defines a C thin C-interface overlaid on the ML
    interface. To use the interface one should read the interface file
    (ce.h) and link with the library --- libce.a on Unix platforms, and
    libce.lib on windows platforms. The documentation can be found in
    the doc subdirectory.

    In the future, CE will form the major C-interface to the system,
    where HOT and Maestro are overlaid on top of it.

    The overhead, as measured on Linux, is very low, on the order on
    10\% above the cost of direct ML calls. This should be lowered even
    further in the future. Currently messages are copied between C and
    ML, we intend to fix this, allowing for zero-copy.

  Caveats: 
    Due to a bug in the current ocaml distribution, the library is a bit
    flaky on WIN32 platforms. 

2. Removed 4-byte alignment restriction on io-vectors. 

3. Various small bug fixes, and documentation patches.
  - Added documentation to the State-Transfer layer (Xfer). 
  - Stopped supporting the Ethernet mode. 
  - Cleanup of the makefiles.
  - Other small changes. 

4. The current distribution was compiled under ocaml-3.01, due to
   bugs in the Unix library in ocaml-3.02. 

======================================================================
2) Tutorial on 'Phantom Types'
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Brian Rogoff posted a tutorial on 'Phantom types'. As Brian said, "This
trick seems to be well known by ML experts, but its not mentioned in any
ML programming texts".

http://caml.inria.fr/archives/200109/msg00097.html

You'll also find further used of the Design Pattern in:
http://caml.inria.fr/archives/200109/msg00180.html
http://caml.inria.fr/archives/200109/msg00103.html
http://caml.inria.fr/archives/200109/msg00137.html

======================================================================
3) FORT user mailing-list
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Patrick M Doan announced:

I have created a mailing list for users of FORT to discuss new features or
changes to the architecture. Those interested can subscribe at:

  http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/fort-users

FORT provides an environment for testing programs and Objective Caml
modules.  It contains a module that oversees the testing process as
well as a front-end for executing tests.  Individual test cases are
written as Objective Caml functions that return the result of
executing the test.

======================================================================

d.
-- 
 David.Mentre@inria.fr
 Opinions expressed here are only mine.