Writing internal DSLs with Ocaml

[robkuz]

Hi,

what would be the preferred/community blessed approach to write DSLs with OCaml?
Is something like F#s Computation Expressions possible?

Thanks

Robertj

[keleshev]

Special syntax for monadic and applicative operations was recently added and will be part of the 4.08 release:

Add "monadic" let operators

The latest version of Dune back-ports this syntax to earlier versions of OCaml:

https://dune.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dune-files.html#future-syntax

A popular approach that also works with existing versions of OCaml is a preprocessor called ppx_let:

janestreet/ppx_let

Apart from that, using plain (>>=) and return is popular and is a fine approach too.

Any of these are adequate, and library authors can use any of them, while the users can make a one-or-two line aliases to make it work for their preferred approach.

My guess is that over time the new syntax will be the preferred approach, while (>>=) will still be used.