From: Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de>
To: Anthony Tavener <anthony.tavener@gmail.com>
Cc: Ashish Agarwal <agarwal1975@gmail.com>, caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Re: Arithmetic operations
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:30:56 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <1301599856.8429.910.camel@thinkpad> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTikbDswe97VNW6BTCmAQcpX_588aXxPUYW7GS3VF@mail.gmail.com>
Am Donnerstag, den 31.03.2011, 12:13 -0600 schrieb Anthony Tavener:
> Yes, an informative, grokable site would be nice! So often with OCaml
> projects I just don't know what they're for and the sites provide
> bare-bones info. As a recent example, I saw OASIS mentioned a few
> times here so I checked the site... but the most informative thing
> there was the link to Haskell's Cabal. After I read the Cabal page,
> then I understood the intended role of OASIS.
>
>
> OCaml stuff seems to lack *exposition*... a description of intent. Too
> often it's very terse "this is what it is" with no "this is why it
> exists and how you use it".
This is a point. There is not enough information available how to do
things practically. Maybe we can encourage people to blog more about
this stuff? I think such articles - in the sense of descriptions which
steps to take, and what the result will be - could be very valuable.
> Bigger than that, what is a practical OCaml setup? I'm still basically
> running with the compiler, some specifically downloaded modules, and
> "my own stdlib". If I manage my OCaml environment with GODI, will I
> run into limitations, or is everyone using it and it's purely
> beneficial? I have no idea what an appropriate setup is, and don't
> want to spend time trying to figure it out myself and possibly messing
> up the ad-hoc configuration I've ended up with. Advice from those with
> experience would be welcome.
In general you have two choices: Take a distribution (GODI, Debian,
Fedora, ...), or do everything yourself. If you choose the first option,
you have quickly a running environment, but maybe it is here and there
incomplete, or the distribution contains outdated packages where it is
important for you to have the latest. Except of this, I don't see any
disadvantages in taking a distribution.
If you do everything yourself, you have more control, but it is far more
adventurous, and it is some work to get everything installed. If you
want to upgrade something, you have to rebuild your setup partially.
IMHO, this option is close to impossible for an individual, because you
spend too much time for rebuilding packages. For companies it is an
option, but it is still a lot of work.
It is generally also possible to take a distribution as basis, and
install packages on top of it manually (just be careful not to overwrite
anything).
> Perhaps other developers run into the same issues. The only known is
> the compiler... need that. Some confusions arise from the split
> choices... P4/P5... ocamlbuild/makefile.
There is also omake, and it is really a recommendation.
> And you don't find out what choice to make until you hit a problem.
> What do you experts do in practice? That's the kind of overview I feel
> is missing.
Right, the only way to find out is to try it.
> There's no place to go (that I've seen) where a practical OCaml
> environment(s) is(/are) described... perhaps because it would require
> being partisan to one choice or another. At least info to help make
> that choice. It seems every time I consider doing a camlp4 extension I
> look up camlp4 vs camlp5 and after my brain turns to fuzz I give up
> and do something else.
Well, that's an issue that even puts off experts. In any way,
camlp4/p5-based syntax extensions have had high maintenance costs in the
past, and there is the question whether to avoid it at all. Back to the
old times, and use generators.
> I've been programming in OCaml for about 6 years now, and if I were to
> start with a clean build, I'd still just build the basic package from
> INRIA and gather specific modules as I needed them... often the
> "install" is just copying the library/object/mli files into a subdir
> of .../lib/ocaml. There must be a better way? What I need is
> guidance. :)
Right, propagate findlib (ocamlfind) which exactly tackles this problem.
> Without any direction, I think OCaml developers end up "going their
> own", and we have this fractured mess. People don't know if the
> functions they need (such as fairly basic math functions, to touch on
> the original topic) exist somewhere. I didn't know about extlib or
> batteries for some time. Where do you start? Google is not the most
> friendly or useful interface for poor, under-represented OCaml. :)
IMHO, these attempts to improve/extend the stdlib created more chaos
than they solved. You don't need an extended stdlib for programming.
Although lean, the Ocaml stdlib is a good one.
In addition to this, I often use libraries to solve specific problems
(e.g. PXP for XML-parsing, Ocamlnet for doing some HTTP, or json-wheel
for juggling with JSON). That's what libraries are good for.
Gerd
> So yes, Ashish, I think a better website for OCaml could be a simple
> and effective way to address these problems!
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 10:45 AM, Ashish Agarwal
> <agarwal1975@gmail.com> wrote:
> One thing I feel is desperately needed is a better website for
> OCaml. I'm trying to organize an effort around this, and
> Sylvain has offered to host the website on ocamlcore.org. If
> you are interested in helping, please contact me off list.
> Thank you.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 11:52 AM, Gabriel Scherer
> <gabriel.scherer@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just a quick clarification :
>
>
> Sylvain has been doing great work for the
> OCaml community for some years. With the help
> of other tools (ocamlfind, godi,
> ocamlbuild...), the Ocamlcore Forge, etc., it
> is now more and more easy to use, share and
> deploy OCaml code.
>
> My wording awkwardly suggests that all the mentioned
> tools are Ocamlcore projects. This is not true :
> - ocamlfind and godi are tools from Gerd Stolpmann and
> have been around for much longer; if you want to help
> the ocaml ecosystem, it's a good idea to begin by
> writing META files for all your released projects;
> they are very simple to write from an existing
> example, and very useful in combination with ocamlfind
> - ocamlbuild is from Nicolas Pouillard and Berke
> Durak; it is a simple and extensible compilation
> system for OCaml, but relatively new; other build
> systems for OCaml exist, such as OCamlMakefile (a
> generic GNU Makefile to help write usual makefiles for
> OCaml program) and OMake.
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Gabriel Scherer
> <gabriel.scherer@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2011/3/31 Philippe Strauss <philou@philou.ch>
>
> So, I think INRIA could continue to
> work on a good compiler, and company
> which make business whith ocaml could
> discuss between them to agreed on
> standards, via Ocamlcore for instance,
> with the agreement of Xavier Leroy's
> team of course.
>
> Xavier Leroy has already said, for example
> during the former OCaml Meetings, that they
> would be happy to link to a more complete
> "OCaml distribution" provided by the
> community, including the core "INRIA lib" and
> some more. I think there is no clear consensus
> right now on what that would be, and that's
> why it hasn't been done yet, but there are
> several orthogonal efforts in that direction
> (more on that later).
>
>
> 2011/3/31 Philippe Strauss <philou@philou.ch>
>
> maybe batteries and janestreet core
> (to name nowadays alternatives) have
> too big ambitions: extension library
> aside INRIA's standard lib would have
> more users than a complete
> alternative.
> [...]
>
> I think it would be important and
> interesting to create a little
> organization which discuss bout a
> standard lib and would begin making a
> synthesis of all these "standard"
> library.
>
>
> Batteries is meant to be an extension of
> INRIA's stdlib, as a continuation of the
> [Extlib] effort. Great care is taken that a
> code using the existing standard library
> should be able to replace it with Batteries
> without changing a line of code. If something
> breaks when converting to batteries, it should
> be filed as a bug.
>
> [Extlib]
> http://code.google.com/p/ocaml-extlib/
>
> The Core library from Jane Street has
> liberated itself from this conservative
> position. Programs should be written directly
> using Core, and it is not in principle easy to
> transition from INRIA's stdlib to Core (of
> course you could include both and be careful
> to avoid conflicts with "open"). The
> advantages are plenty: it allows Janestreet to
> provide a coherent set of packages and make
> different design choices (arguably some
> aspects of INRIA's stdlib are more "non
> choices"). On the other hand, it means that
> direct "synthesis" of both efforts (Core and
> Batteries) is not likely. There is also the
> difference that Batteries is a
> community-driven effort, while Core is more
> internal to Jane Street; they would probably
> welcome contributions, but their internal code
> is naturally their top priority, and the
> external release model has been rather
> sporadic for now.
>
>
> Le 31 mars 2011 à 10:19, Pierre-Alexandre
> Voye:
>
> I think it would be important and
> interesting to create a little
> organization which discuss bout a
> standard lib and would begin making a
> synthesis of all these "standard"
> library.
>
> After the first OCaml Meeting, there has been
> some discussion on the Cocan Wiki, but I think
> the site is down currently.
> http://le-gall.net/sylvain
> +violaine/blog/index.php?post/2008/01/30/36-ocamlmeeting-in-paris-debian-summary
>
>
>
> 2011/3/31 Philippe Strauss <philou@philou.ch>
>
> the way you can get haskell packaged
> easily, on the contrary, as some big
> appeal.
>
> Sylvain Le Gall has been working on a
> CPAN-like repository for OCaml, using his
> "oasis" distribution tool:
>
> http://oasis.forge.ocamlcore.org/oasis-db.html
>
>
> Sylvain has been doing great work for the
> OCaml community for some years. With the help
> of other tools (ocamlfind, godi,
> ocamlbuild...), the Ocamlcore Forge, etc., it
> is now more and more easy to use, share and
> deploy OCaml code. Of course, there still are
> a lot of rough edges, but the only way to go
> further is that the community (yes, you!) try
> to use those tools, popularize them, and also
> report feedback on what could be improved.
>
> For a very long time, using OCaml has been a
> joyful but solitary activity. If you want a
> more vibrant community, the only thing to do
> is to do your part of the work as you would
> need the others to do. Set a standard, so that
> things that are now rare are taken for granted
> in the future. Nobody, except maybe Sylvain,
> has the devotion to work full-time on the
> small details that will improve things in the
> long run, and this is ok. Yes, writing an
> oasis file (or even a META) or contributing an
> obvious function to Batteries is tedious and
> certainly less sexy that a lot of things
> you're working on. But this won't happen
> magically.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 11:38 AM,
> Pierre-Alexandre Voye <ontologiae@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 2011/3/31 Philippe Strauss
> <philou@philou.ch>
>
> Le 31 mars 2011 à 10:19,
> Pierre-Alexandre Voye a
> écrit :
>
> > It's funny, because I'm
> > studying why language
> > succeed or not, for my M1
> > dissertation (M1
> > Management), and it's one of
> > the big factor, among
> > others, of sucess.
> > Ocaml is highly expressive,
> > so you could turn around,
> > but it's a big problem.
> >
> > I think it would be
> > important and interesting to
> > create a little organization
> > which discuss bout a
> > standard lib and would begin
> > making a synthesis of all
> > these "standard" library.
>
>
> Personally I'm not that
> unhappy with the standard lib
> shipped by INRIA.
>
>
> maybe batteries and janestreet
> core (to name nowadays
> alternatives) have too big
> ambitions: extension library
> aside INRIA's standard lib
> would have more users than a
> complete alternative.
>
>
> the way you can get haskell
> packaged easily, on the
> contrary, as some big appeal.
>
>
>
> I think INRIA, and in particular the
> Xavier Leroy's team, make what they
> can. Their work isn't to maintain
> OCaml but mainly to do research.
> So, I think INRIA could continue to
> work on a good compiler, and company
> which make business whith ocaml could
> discuss between them to agreed on
> standards, via Ocamlcore for instance,
> with the agreement of Xavier Leroy's
> team of course.
>
>
>
>
> --
> ---------------------
> Isaac Project - http://www.lisaac.org/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
--
------------------------------------------------------------
Gerd Stolpmann, Bad Nauheimer Str.3, 64289 Darmstadt,Germany
gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de
Phone: +49-6151-153855 Fax: +49-6151-997714
------------------------------------------------------------
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2011-03-31 19:31 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 16+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2011-03-27 19:02 [Caml-list] " Christophe Papazian
2011-03-30 12:57 ` [Caml-list] " Dawid Toton
2011-03-31 7:56 ` Christophe Papazian
2011-03-31 8:19 ` Pierre-Alexandre Voye
2011-03-31 9:23 ` Philippe Strauss
2011-03-31 9:38 ` Pierre-Alexandre Voye
2011-03-31 12:19 ` Gabriel Scherer
[not found] ` <133381EA-5DD1-4B00-A3BA-69127B259BE2@philou.ch>
2011-03-31 13:10 ` Gabriel Scherer
2011-03-31 15:52 ` Gabriel Scherer
2011-03-31 16:45 ` Ashish Agarwal
2011-03-31 18:13 ` Anthony Tavener
2011-03-31 19:30 ` Gerd Stolpmann [this message]
2011-03-31 23:43 ` Yaron Minsky
2011-03-31 8:36 ` Gabriel Scherer
2011-03-31 9:16 ` Erik de Castro Lopo
2011-03-31 12:50 ` Gerd Stolpmann
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