[johnnyjeans]

sml, specifically the MLTon dialect. It's good for all the same reasons ocaml is good, it's just a much better version of the ML-language in my opinion.

I think the only thing that ocaml has that I miss in sml is applicative functors, but in the end that just translates to slightly different module styles.

[makeset]

I remember working through Appel's compiler textbook in school, in SML and Java editions side by side, and the SML version was of course laughably more concise. It felt like cheating, because it practically was.

[pjmlp]

Nowadays you could make the Java version quite similar to the SML one, if there would be a new edition.

I have been looking forward to ML like capabilities on mainstream since using Caml Light.

Regarding those books, while we used the Java version, alongside JavaCC, when time came to actually buy the book, I also got the SML edition.

[wk_end]

Can you expand on what makes SML better, in your eyes, than OCaml?

IMO: it's certainly "simpler" and "cleaner" (although it's been a while but IIRC the treatment of things like equality and arithmetic is hacky in its own way), which I think causes some people to prefer SML over aesthetics, but TBH I feel like many of OCaml's features missing in SML are quite useful. You mentioned applicative functors, but there's also things like labelled arguments, polymorphic variants, GADTs, even the much-maligned object system that have their place. Is there anything SML really brings to the table besides the omission of features like this?

[johnnyjeans]

> the treatment of things like equality and arithmetic is hacky in its own way

mlton allows you to use a keyword to get the same facility for function overloading that is used for addition and equality. it's disabled by default for hygienic reasons, function overloading shouldn't be abused.

https://baturin.org/code/mlton-overload/

> labelled arguments

generally speaking if my functions are large enough for this to matter, i'd rather be passing around refs to structures so refactoring is easier.

> polymorphic variants

haven't really missed them.

> GADTs

afaik being able to store functors inside of modules would fix this (and I think sml/nj supports this), but SML's type system is more than capable of expressing virtual machines in a comfortable way with normal ADTs. if i wanted to get that cute with the type system, i'd probably go the whole country mile and reach for idris.

> even the much-maligned object system that have their place

never used it.

> Is there anything SML really brings to the table besides the omission of features like this?

mlton is whole-program optimizing (and very good at it)[1], has a much better FFI[2][3], is much less opinionated as a language, and the parallelism is about 30 years ahead[4]. the most important feature to me is that sml is more comfortable to use over ocaml. being nicer syntactically matters, and that increases in proportion with the amount of code you have to read and write. you dont go hiking in flip flops. as a knock-on effect, that simplicitly in sml ends up with a language that allows for a lot more mechanical sympathy.

all of these things combine for me, as an engineer, to what's fundamentally a more pragmatic language. the french have peculiar taste in programming languages, marseille prolog is also kind of weird. ocaml feels quirky in the same way as a french car, and i don't necessarily want that from a tool.

[1] - http://www.mlton.org/Performance

[2] - http://www.mlton.org/ForeignFunctionInterface

[3] - http://www.mlton.org/MLNLFFIGen

[4] - https://sss.cs.purdue.edu/projects/multiMLton/mML/Documentat...