Alice ML

Alice is a functional programming language that builds on Standard ML. It offers great tools for working with concurrent, distributed, and constraint programming. Let's check out what makes Alice so cool!

Key Features of Alice ML

Here are some highlights:

• Futures: Enjoy lazy, lightweight concurrency with data-flow synchronization.


• Higher-order modules: Use higher-order functors and abstract signatures.


• Packages: Combine static and dynamic typing along with first-class modules.


• Pickling: Get type-safe, generic & platform-independent persistence.


• Components: Benefit from platform independence and type-safe dynamic loading of modules.


• Distribution: Work with type-safe cross-platform remote functions and network mobility.


• Constraints: Solve combinatorial problems using constraint propagation and programmable search.

Additions in the Latest Release

This latest version of Alice brings in some exciting updates!

• Alice now includes new extensions for Successor ML.


• The bytecode jitter has become the default execution unit.


• The documentation features a helpful tutorial on constraint programming, plus the library now uses the latest stable version of Gecode.

A Few More Cool Tools

• Virtual machine: A portable VM supporting just-in-time compilation.


• Interactive system: An interpreter-like interactive toplevel for easy use.


• Batch compiler: Enables separate compilation for better organization.


• Static linker: Provides type-safe bundling of components to keep things tidy.


• Inspector: A handy tool for interactively checking out data structures.


• Explorer: Another great tool for investigating search problems interactively.


• Gtk+: A binding for the Gnome toolkit GUI library.


• SQL: A library that makes accessing SQL databases simple.


• XML: A straightforward library for parsing XML documents.