SML/NJ Development Info

These pages contain planning and other information related to the development of SML/NJ. The purpose is to coordinate between the geographically dispersed subgroups of the sml-nj community. These pages are currently not being publicized beyond the sml-nj mailing list.

We want these pages to keep track of who is doing what, when, and why, and to map dependencies between efforts. We also maintain documentation on how to use the CVS repositories at Yale and SourceForge to maintain the SML/NJ source code and web pages.

These pages are maintained by Lal and Dave, so please send them updates and corrections and relevant links. Also suggestions are welcome as to what additional information should be maintained here.

News

SML/NJ web pages installed at SourceForge [10/17/01] [dbm]

The SML/NJ web pages have been installed in the smlnj project CVS repository, and checked out into the project web page directory. See the section on the SML/NJ SourceForge project below.

June 2001 SML/NJ Meeting [dbm]

A status/planning meeting was held June 12, 2001 at Bell Labs. See the meeting record. Send any corrections to dbm.

Status [dbm]

Working version 110.33 is latest, created 23 May 2001.

Benchmark graphs

Lal has added graphs of the benchmarks for a representative sample of version from 110.0.3 to 110.26. See the Benchmarks section below.

SML/NJ SourceForge project

The SML/NJ SourceForge project is now in use and under active development. See the SourceForge HOWTO page for instructions on using the smlnj project.

Currently the SourceForge CVS repository contains the source modules (e.g. smlnj, bugs) that were recently moved from Yale, and the SML/NJ web pages (module "htdocs", which is an alias for module "pages"). The htdocs module is checked out in the main project directory (/home/groups/s/sm/smlnj) to provide the web pages for www.smlnj.org, which is served by SourceForge. The web pages are also mirrored at http://smlnj.cs.uchicago.edu. The old Bell Labs URL is defunct.

Yale CVS Repository

We are using the CVS Repository to hold the master code for the compiler, libraries and tools, and for private development branches. The initial state of the source repository is based on working version 110.26 (even though this was never released as a normal working version). As mentioned above, the same repository also holds the SML/NJ web pages.

• Policy. This policy statement lays out the rules and procedures for administering the CVS repository [last revised 3/8/00].

• Repository README. The cvs-readme page contains instructions on accessing the Yale repository and instructions and advice on using CVS.

• Location. The repository's CVS root is

    flint.cs.yale.edu:/home/cvs
  

• Repository Map. The structure of the repository is described by this map.

• Boot files. The location of the current boot files for building the compiler corresponding to the current state of the repository is given in the file smlnj/BOOT in the repository. The file smlnj/HISTORY tracks all changes that have been committed.

• Mailing List. To get email reports on all commits to the repository, subscribe to the smlnj-cvs mailing list by sending a message to smlnj-cvs-request@rum.cs.yale.edu with subject:

    subscribe <your@email.address>
  

• Managing Branches. CVS branches are useful but also tricky. These notes by Matthias Blume provide a summary of useful commands and procedures to follow when using branches. Additional advice on branches can be found in Stefan Monnier's follow-up notes.

Benchmarks

All the benchmark compile times and run times have been graphed going back to 110.0.3. All measurements were done on a DEC alpha at the Labs. The following conclusions appear to be supported by the graphs:

• Version 110.12, which is the new array representation alone, did not have a significant impact on both compile and execution time.

• Version 110.11 (the combination of NEW FLINT and array representation) did have a significant overall impact. Note that the NEW FLINT was subsequently retracted.

• In general execution time has remained the same or has steadily improved over the working versions.

• Compile time has steadily increased but not by anything significant.

Look here for more details.

Roadmaps

The roadmaps below are way out of date. We need to revised these.

• Winter/Spring 99
• A planning meeting was held on April 22 at Murray Hill. The agenda and dbm's meeting notes are available here. Please send dbm any corrections, clarifications, or additions to the notes.
• Summer 99

Links

These are links to development pages maintained by subgroups of sml-nj.

• Matthias Blume [updated July 6, 2000]
• FLINT

SML/NJ Developers mailing lists

There is one mailing list for communication to and among the SML/NJ developers. The address is .

---

Dave MacQueen

Last modified: Fri May 25 17:53:24 CDT 2007