designing Ocaml programs with a graphical modeling language ?

designing Ocaml programs with a graphical modeling language ?

[Stéphane DUPRAT]

Hello,

Is anyone knows or uses a graphical modeling language suitable for 
designing in FP developments ?

thanks,

Stéphane Duprat

Re: [Caml-list] designing Ocaml programs with a graphical modeling language ?

[Stéphane DUPRAT]

> Can you elaborate?
>   
To be more precise, I'm searching a modeling language (such as UML for 
OO methods) and a tool to design my developments in ocaml. That tool 
doesn't need to be written in ocaml.

As for uml, it seems to be not very convenient for functional languages 
(i didn't use oo features of ocaml) and not very popular in fp community.

After a short search on the web, i didn't find anything for that. The 
main argument is that functional languages don't need heavy design 
methods based on graphical representations.
As for me, I think that designing with a graphical modeling language 
could be profitable.


Stéphane Duprat

Re: [Caml-list] designing Ocaml programs with a graphical modeling language ?

[Jon Harrop]

On Thursday 25 January 2007 10:37, Stéphane DUPRAT wrote:
> ...
> As for me, I think that designing with a graphical modeling language
> could be profitable.

I see. While I haven't seen any graphical modelling languages for FPLs, there 
are tools to automate the visualisation of dependencies. I found them quite 
useful (and fun!).

I'd like some tools to plot OCaml call graphs and so on. Also to find 
exceptions that can propagate to the top level (I never got ocamlexn to 
work).

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
Objective CAML for Scientists
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_for_scientists

Re: [Caml-list] designing Ocaml programs with a graphical modeling language ?

[skaller]

On Thu, 2007-01-25 at 11:37 +0100, Stéphane DUPRAT wrote:
> > Can you elaborate?
> >   
> To be more precise, I'm searching a modeling language (such as UML for 
> OO methods) and a tool to design my developments in ocaml. That tool 
> doesn't need to be written in ocaml.
> 
> As for uml, it seems to be not very convenient for functional languages 
> (i didn't use oo features of ocaml) and not very popular in fp community.
> 
> After a short search on the web, i didn't find anything for that. The 
> main argument is that functional languages don't need heavy design 
> methods based on graphical representations.
> As for me, I think that designing with a graphical modeling language 
> could be profitable.

I think part of the argument is: design is basically abstraction.
OO does not provide a scalable concept of abstraction, so it uses
a distinct language .. this is a serious flaw in OO.

Functional languages provide better abstraction with better
scalability, so don't need a distinct modelling language.

This is not to say it is not worthwhile drawing pictures.
Note that ML is a *procedural* programming language not
a functional one, and even Haskell can sequence imperative
operations like I/O. 

The traditional graphical design tool here is the flow chart.
There are lots of tools than can draw flow charts.

There is a formal connection between flow charts and the
category theory underlying computing, developed by RFC Walters:
see "Categories and Computer Science", ISBN 1 875399 01 1
(but this version is impossible to obtain outside Australia,
there's a reprint by another institution).

-- 
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sf dot net>
Felix, successor to C++: http://felix.sf.net

Re: [Caml-list] designing Ocaml programs with a graphical modeling language ?

[Yoann Padioleau]

Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com> writes:

> On Thursday 25 January 2007 10:37, Stéphane DUPRAT wrote:
>> ...
>> As for me, I think that designing with a graphical modeling language
>> could be profitable.

I know "Visual Haskell", maybe it can helps
  http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/~johnr/papers/visual.html

>
> I see. While I haven't seen any graphical modelling languages for FPLs, there 
> are tools to automate the visualisation of dependencies. I found them quite 
> useful (and fun!).
>
> I'd like some tools to plot OCaml call graphs and so on. 

You can run your program with profiling on and then use the callgraph
generated by gprof and pass it into dot. 

> Also to find 
> exceptions that can propagate to the top level (I never got ocamlexn to 
> work).
>
> -- 
> Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
> Objective CAML for Scientists
> http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_for_scientists
>
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