Book in english

Book in english

[Gerard Huet]

Hello to all, Bonjour à tous

I cannot comment on the O'Reilly book, which I have not seen yet, although
I trust the authors to have made a good job. But in the current discussion
about translating it in english, I have seen no mention of the numerous
books on programming in varous dialects of Caml which have appeared so far,
some of them available in english. For instance:

"The Functional Approach to Programming" by Guy Cousineau and Michel Mauny,
Cambridge University Press, 1998. 

It is a quite good reference book on programming in Caml Light, close
enough to Objective Caml to be used as a standard beginner's textbook, even
if it does not cover modules and objects. It gives many serious programming
examples, and answers many of the questions that are routinely asked on
this list, such as how to program doubly linked lists (the "sweet"
implementation given by Xavier a few days ago is covered in section 4.4.5
for instance).

GH
PS en français : l'édition originale en français est disponible chez
Edisciences, 1995. 

Re: Book in english

[John Prevost]

>>>>> "gh" == Gerard Huet <Gerard.Huet@inria.fr> writes:

    gh> "The Functional Approach to Programming" by Guy Cousineau and
    gh> Michel Mauny, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

    gh> It is a quite good reference book on programming in Caml
    gh> Light, close enough to Objective Caml to be used as a standard
    gh> beginner's textbook, even if it does not cover modules and
    gh> objects. It gives many serious programming examples, and
    gh> answers many of the questions that are routinely asked on this
    gh> list, such as how to program doubly linked lists (the "sweet"
    gh> implementation given by Xavier a few days ago is covered in
    gh> section 4.4.5 for instance).

I have this book.  It's a good book, has a lot of great information in
it, and isn't too far away from O'Caml.  Unfortunately, it isn't a
great book for introducing people to the O'Caml language.  (It might
be more appropriate in a classroom setting.)

I should probably try to get a copy of the new book imported so I can
at least see how it's organized before I decide that it's better--but
as it's oriented towards the programming language O'Caml and not
functional programming in general (just happening to use Caml Light),
I suspect it will be better.

Besides--it's always easier to sell people on reading O'Reilly books.  :)

John.

Re: Book in english

[Benjamin C. Pierce]

> "The Functional Approach to Programming" by Guy Cousineau and Michel Mauny,
> Cambridge University Press, 1998. 
> 
> It is a quite good reference book on programming in Caml Light, close
> enough to Objective Caml to be used as a standard beginner's textbook, even
> if it does not cover modules and objects. It gives many serious programming
> examples, and answers many of the questions that are routinely asked on
> this list, such as how to program doubly linked lists (the "sweet"
> implementation given by Xavier a few days ago is covered in section 4.4.5
> for instance).

Unfortunately, this is not quite the book we need at Penn (neither is
the new O'Reilly book, from what I've heard, but I'm hoping that parts
will be useful) -- it's an excellent book for second- or third-year
students with some programming background, but it seems too hard for
complete beginners or for (U.S.) college freshmen.  (If anyone has
evidence to contradict that claim, I'd love to hear it!)

      B

Re: Book in english

[Matías Giovannini]

"Benjamin C. Pierce" wrote:
> 
> > "The Functional Approach to Programming" by Guy Cousineau and Michel Mauny,
> > Cambridge University Press, 1998.
> >
> > It is a quite good reference book on programming in Caml Light, close
> > enough to Objective Caml to be used as a standard beginner's textbook, even
> > if it does not cover modules and objects. It gives many serious programming
> > examples, and answers many of the questions that are routinely asked on
> > this list, such as how to program doubly linked lists (the "sweet"
> > implementation given by Xavier a few days ago is covered in section 4.4.5
> > for instance).
> 
> Unfortunately, this is not quite the book we need at Penn (neither is
> the new O'Reilly book, from what I've heard, but I'm hoping that parts
> will be useful) -- it's an excellent book for second- or third-year
> students with some programming background, but it seems too hard for
> complete beginners or for (U.S.) college freshmen.  (If anyone has
> evidence to contradict that claim, I'd love to hear it!)
> 
>       B

How about "The little MLer", by Felleisen? That's an easy, nice book for
beginners to start thinking in functional terms. It even has a chapter
on modules, and even if it's based on the SML/NJ syntax, it contemplates
CamlSpecialLight/OCaml syntax.

HTH,
Matías.

-- 
The Principle of Criminal Stupidity: "You, and only you,
should accept the consequences of believing a false assertion."

Re: Book in english

[Benjamin C. Pierce]

> How about "The little MLer", by Felleisen? That's an easy, nice book for
> beginners to start thinking in functional terms. It even has a chapter
> on modules, and even if it's based on the SML/NJ syntax, it contemplates
> CamlSpecialLight/OCaml syntax.

Unfortunately, freshmen are not very tolerant of "trivial syntactic
differences": we really need an OCaml book.

(Also, I remain to be convinced that Felleisen and Friedman's book,
for all its quirky virtues, is an ideal textbook, even for SML.
Anybody know if it's being used anyplace for real teaching?)

      Benjamin