3 Drawbacks of MLton
- large compile-time memory requirement
-
Because MLton performs whole-program analysis and optimization,
compilation requires a large amount of memory on large programs. For
example, compiling MLton (over 100K lines) requires at least 256M
RAM.
- long compile times
-
Whole-program compilation can take a long time on large programs. For
example, compiling MLton (over 100K lines) on a 1.6GhZ machine
takes five to ten minutes.
- no interactive top level
-
Because of whole-program compilation, MLton does not provide an
interactive top level. In particular, it does not implement the
optional use basis library function.