Re: [Caml-list] what is high-level

[David Teller <David.Teller@ens-lyon.org>]

Le vendredi 04 novembre 2005 à 11:06 -0500, Alan Falloon a écrit : 
> David Teller wrote:
> 
> >Still, in OCaml/Haskell/ML, you do need some understanding of the type
> >system, which is typically not necessary in other programming languages.
> 
> To write software you need to have some notion of types. By that I mean 
> that you need an understanding of what values a certain operation can 
> produce.

Sure. But in Python/Boo, as you mention, you have duck typing. In my
books, that makes it easier to learn Python than OCaml, because that's
one less thing you need to know before starting your first program.

Of course, in OCaml, you have "static duck typing" for objects, but
that's a different issue.


> I think the biggest barrier is the language. It took me forever to 
> figure out what a 'row variable' was. 

Er... what is a row variable ? :)
Is that a polymorphic variant ?

> What we really need is a concept map from the popular languages (C, C++, 
> Java, Python, Perl) to OCaml. Show common idioms in those languages and 
> how they look in OCaml, and if there is a better way in OCaml then show 
> that too. It might not make a good Wikipedia article, but it is the sort 
> of project well suited to a Wiki. Is there an OCaml Wiki?

Iirc, there's an OCaml Wikibook on the Wikipedia.

Cheers,
 David
> 
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