Ml Language

The FunctionalProgrammingLanguage ML was originally developed by RobinMilner (TuringAward 1991) and was the first language to include PolymorphicTypeInference, together with a type-safe exception-handling mechanism. ML stands for MetaLanguage, not for MarkupLanguage. ML is not MachineLanguage.

ML is a StronglyTyped, StaticallyTyped language with semantics somewhat resembling those of the SchemeLanguage.

ML provides the following features:

• automatic TypeInference: Don't write types yourself, let the compiler do it for you!
• mostly declarative syntax using PatternMatching
• GenericTypes: Somewhat like C++'s templates (see CategoryCppTemplates).
• ParametricModules? (functors): Modules can take other modules as an argument. (As far as I know, this is unique for ML.) (AnswerMe: I've tried to research this on the web aeons ago, and my understanding of how functors work still eludes me. Can someone point a clueless n00b to a step-by-step tutorial or fill in the gaps on HowMlFunctorsWork? ? Thanks!)

Unlike Haskell [HaskellLanguage] (and like LispLanguage and Scheme), ML is strict: the arguments to a function are always evaluated before evaluating the body of the function (see StrictEvaluation and LazyEvaluation).

There are three ML dialects in wide use:

• O'Caml [ObjectiveCaml]
• Standard ML [SmlLanguage]
• F# [FsharpLanguage]

See http://www.mpi-sws.mpg.de/~rossberg/sml-vs-ocaml.html for a concise description of the differences between O'Caml and Standard ML.

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Can we see some code snippet and syntax/notation examples here?

Maybe some SmlLanguage examples would satisfy. There is an example at that page already.

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CategoryProgrammingLanguage CategoryFunctionalProgramming