Question: Why is there a dependency on Base?

[hannesm]

I am happy for ocamlformat to exist. I am wondering whether there is any strong reason for depending on base? The reason I'm asking is since compilation times of base and its dependencies are pretty huge, and I'm not sure I see the benefit within ocamlformat to use such an external stdlib.

Any strong reasons for having this dependency? Are there any attempts to remove it? Would a PR removing this dependency be welcome, and would there be resources that it would be reviewed?

[gpetiot]

Historically there was a few early contributions from Jane Street, and ocamlformat needed a lot of utility functions so it made sense at that time to just use base instead of re-implemeting a lot of stuff.

There have been an attempt to remove this dependency in the past, but this was never a priority, and it got stale and aborted because it was a lot of unfunded work. Priorities were decided on whether someone was funding maintenance work or new features. However I think that's something that will be welcomed in the codebase if someone has got the time to put into it.
It would probably be reviewed on contributors' personal time, as any non-funded/non-prioritised work.