alice
manual.
features
________ Overview ____________________________________________________
Alice is a functional programming language based on
Standard ML,
extended with support for concurrent, distributed,
and constraint programming. The Alice ML
language extends Standard ML with several new features:
- Futures:
laziness and light-weight concurrency with data-flow synchronisation
- Higher-order modules:
higher-order functors and abstract signatures
- Packages:
integrating static with dynamic typing and first class modules
- Pickling:
higher-order type-safe, generic & platform-independent persistence
- Components:
platform-independence and type-safe dynamic loading of modules
- Distribution:
type-safe cross-platform remote functions and network mobility
- Constraints:
solving combinatorical problems using constraint propagation and
programmable search
The Alice System is a rich open-source programming system
featuring the following tools:
- Virtual machine:
a portable VM with support for just-in-time compilation
- Interactive system:
an interpreter-like environment with graphical interface
- Batch compiler:
separate compilation
- Static linker:
type-safe bundling of components
- Inspector:
a tool for interactively inspecting data structures
- Explorer:
a tool for interactively investigating search problems
- Gtk+:
a binding to the Gnome toolkit GUI library
- SQL:
a library for accessing SQL databases
- XML:
a simple library for parsing XML documents
last modified 2005/Aug/03 09:17