wood@gatech.UUCP (11/07/87)
Hello netlanders,
I have been doing some work with functional programming languages (well
with fp) and have heard about sml (standard ml) but I can not seem
to find any information on it. Is there anyone out there who has
worked with sml; has references or actual manuals, papers, etc on line
which they could e-mail me; and where or how does one acquire a copy
of the system? (have I forgotten anything? :-) )
Since I have nothing so far, I would appreciate any information you
can provide.
Thanx in advance,
--
David Wood
School of Information & Computer Science, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: wood @ GATech ARPA: wood%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!woodkamin@uiucdcsb.cs.uiuc.edu (11/10/87)
The language ML has been around quite a while, and Standard ML is a recent
attempt to standardize it. I mention this because there is a larger
literature on previous versions of ML than there is on Standard ML.
Here are some places to look:
Original ML (this was not a stand-alone language processor; rather, ML
was a kind of overgrown command language for a proof system called LCF):
Gordon et al, A Metalanguage for Interactive Proof in LCF, 5th POPL, 1978
Gordon et al, Edinburgh LCF, Springer LNCS 78
Cardelli ML (a stand-alone version implemented by L. Cardelli):
Cardelli, ML under UNIX, Bell Labs Tech. Memo. (I don't have any other
publication info.)
Standard ML:
Milner, A Proposal for Standard ML, Symp. on Lisp and F. P., 1984,
184-197
The latter is the only reference I can find describing Standard ML itself,
and it is not intended for the beginner - in fact, it is one of the most
terse language descriptions I've ever seen.
As far as obtaining a copy, Dave MacQueen (Bell Labs) and Andrew Appel
(Princeton) are nearing completion of a new implementation (Vax and 68020),
as reported in a recent paper:
MacQueen and Appel, A Standard ML Compiler, Symp. on Functional P. L.'s
and Computer Arch, 1987, Springer LNCS 274.
I suggest writing to MacQueen (Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ 07974) or
Appel (Dept. of C.S., Princeton U., Princeton, NJ 08544).
Sam Kamin
U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign