R: A manual...

R: A manual...

[Alex Baretta]

-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: Alex Baretta <alex@baretta.com>
A: caml-list@inria.fr <caml-list@inria.fr>
Data: domenica 14 gennaio 2001 21.49
Oggetto: A manual...


>Hi there! I'm a new Ocaml user and enthusiast. ...

I guess I am a little over enthusiastic. I forgot to mention one
important point: i found the online manual a read several sections. I
found parts that looked more like a reminder for somebody who already
knows the language very well, and others (the short overview at the
beginning of the manual) excessively shallow to help understand the
most powerful features of the language. I would really appreaciate if
anyone could point me to some other online documentation on the
language, with which from a simple Ocaml enthusiast I might become an
Ocaml guru.

BTW, thanks to all who have taken time to answer my first mail. I hope
I'm not bugging you guys. I have now been reading this mailing list
for several days, and I have noticed that the average level is a
little over my understanding (say, another couple of years of
university study above my understanding): it is probably not the right
place for a newbie to post, or is it?

Ciao a tutti! Hello to all! Salut à tout le monde!

Alex

Re: R: A manual...

[Brian Rogoff]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Alex Baretta wrote:
> -----Messaggio originale-----
> Da: Alex Baretta <alex@baretta.com>
> A: caml-list@inria.fr <caml-list@inria.fr>
> Data: domenica 14 gennaio 2001 21.49
> Oggetto: A manual...
> 
> >Hi there! I'm a new Ocaml user and enthusiast. ...
> 
> I guess I am a little over enthusiastic. 

NO! There can never be too much OCaml enthusiasm. One of the many things a 
language needs to become widespread is enthusiastic newbies. Crank up the 
volume dude.

> I forgot to mention one
> important point: i found the online manual a read several sections. I
> found parts that looked more like a reminder for somebody who already
> knows the language very well, and others (the short overview at the
> beginning of the manual) excessively shallow to help understand the
> most powerful features of the language. I would really appreaciate if
> anyone could point me to some other online documentation on the
> language, with which from a simple Ocaml enthusiast I might become an
> Ocaml guru.

If you read French, try this site 

http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/Livres/ora/DA-OCAML/index.html

which is the online O'Reilly book. If you have time, and your French is as
good as your English, you could join the volunteer effort to translate
this. 

I wish there were more docs available, since a friend of mine who I was
trying to bring to the light is going to try SML instead, on account of
the wider availability of simple tutorial material. The level of the 
Caml materials was to high for him, given his background and available
time. 

> BTW, thanks to all who have taken time to answer my first mail. I hope
> I'm not bugging you guys. I have now been reading this mailing list
> for several days, and I have noticed that the average level is a
> little over my understanding (say, another couple of years of
> university study above my understanding): it is probably not the right
> place for a newbie to post, or is it?

It is a well moderated list, so don't worry, if Pierre thinks it isn't
right, he'll reject it. Newbie questions are great, it means the Ocaml 
ranks are swelling. Maybe one day that other common thread about whether 
business will accept Ocaml will become irrelevant on account of the 
hordes of knowledgeable Ocaml programmers. Welcome aboard!

-- Brian

RE: R: A manual...

[Mattias Waldau]

About Ocaml in english:

http://cristal.inria.fr/~remy/cours/appsem/

http://www.cs.ait.ac.th/~kitt/


-----Original Message-----
From: Pierre.Weis@inria.fr [mailto:Pierre.Weis@inria.fr]On Behalf Of
Brian Rogoff
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2001 8:46 PM
To: Alex Baretta
Cc: caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: Re: R: A manual...


On Tue, 16 Jan 2001, Alex Baretta wrote:
> -----Messaggio originale-----
> Da: Alex Baretta <alex@baretta.com>
> A: caml-list@inria.fr <caml-list@inria.fr>
> Data: domenica 14 gennaio 2001 21.49
> Oggetto: A manual...
> 
> >Hi there! I'm a new Ocaml user and enthusiast. ...
> 
> I guess I am a little over enthusiastic. 

NO! There can never be too much OCaml enthusiasm. One of the many things a 
language needs to become widespread is enthusiastic newbies. Crank up the 
volume dude.

> I forgot to mention one
> important point: i found the online manual a read several sections. I
> found parts that looked more like a reminder for somebody who already
> knows the language very well, and others (the short overview at the
> beginning of the manual) excessively shallow to help understand the
> most powerful features of the language. I would really appreaciate if
> anyone could point me to some other online documentation on the
> language, with which from a simple Ocaml enthusiast I might become an
> Ocaml guru.

If you read French, try this site 

http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/Livres/ora/DA-OCAML/index.html

which is the online O'Reilly book. If you have time, and your French is as
good as your English, you could join the volunteer effort to translate
this. 

I wish there were more docs available, since a friend of mine who I was
trying to bring to the light is going to try SML instead, on account of
the wider availability of simple tutorial material. The level of the 
Caml materials was to high for him, given his background and available
time. 

> BTW, thanks to all who have taken time to answer my first mail. I hope
> I'm not bugging you guys. I have now been reading this mailing list
> for several days, and I have noticed that the average level is a
> little over my understanding (say, another couple of years of
> university study above my understanding): it is probably not the right
> place for a newbie to post, or is it?

It is a well moderated list, so don't worry, if Pierre thinks it isn't
right, he'll reject it. Newbie questions are great, it means the Ocaml 
ranks are swelling. Maybe one day that other common thread about whether 
business will accept Ocaml will become irrelevant on account of the 
hordes of knowledgeable Ocaml programmers. Welcome aboard!

-- Brian

RE: R: A manual...

[Paul A. Steckler]

>... If you have time, and your French is as
>good as your English, you could join the volunteer effort to translate
>this. 

Are volunteers still needed for this effort?  My French is rusty, 
but probably good enough to be helpful.

-- Paul

 ----------------------------------------------------------------
| Paul Steckler, Ph.D.       |    Rice University PLT            | 
| steck@cs.rice.edu          |    DrScheme Project               |
| Tel:  713/348-3814         |    http://www.cs.rice.edu/~steck/ |
| FAX:  713/348-5930         |    *** Ad astra per hackera ***   |
 ---------------------------------------------------------------- 

R: A manual...

[Alex Baretta]

-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: David Mentre <David.Mentre@inria.fr>
A: Alex Baretta <alex@baretta.com>
Cc: caml-list@inria.fr <caml-list@inria.fr>
Data: martedì 16 gennaio 2001 14.23
Oggetto: Re: A manual...


>"Alex Baretta" <alex@baretta.com> writes:
>
>> lambda-calculi and logic languages. These languages are not
mentioned
>> in the c Can anyone point me to some online resource on the use of
>> Ocaml to build interpreters / compilers for such languages?
>
>Regarding Caml (that I think falls in your category of lambda-calculi
>language), you'll find a research report describing the
implementation
>of Caml in Caml (be aware, it is quite hard to read) :


It most certainly does. A Caml interpreter should not be hard to code
in Ocaml (or Caml itself, of course). A compiler is probably a lot
trickier. But I'd stick to pretty straightforward theoretical-model
work for now. I still have a quite a little I have to study ;-)

>Xavier Leroy. The zinc experiment: an economical implementation of
the
> ML language. Technical report 117, INRIA, 1990.A
> http://pauillac.inria.fr/~xleroy/publi/ZINC.ps.gz


I'll take a look at it. Thanks.

>Otherwise, look at papers of team Contraintes, Cristal, Moscova (and
>others I've not in memory right now) at INRIA. They use OCaml for
>various languages, type-system and compilers.


I'll definitely look into logic languages. I have one in mind which I
would like to implement, if only for an exercise.

>> One more curiosity: what language is Ocaml written in?
>
>In Ocaml, except for the Garbage Collector and the bytecode runtime
>environment, both written in C. The OCaml Language is unable to
express
>some low-level systems.


Cool! I imagined they would do it in Ocaml itself. Sounds like magic,
though.

>But you could have found it by yourself looking at online source
code:
>  http://camlcvs.inria.fr/cgi-bin/cvsweb.out/ocaml/


I did not notice the sources were online. Thanks for mentioning the
address.


Alex