Re: [Caml-list] Which development framework for web application in OCaml?

[Vincent Balat <Vincent.Balat@pps.jussieu.fr>]

Hi,

> There is also Ocsigen ( http://www.ocsigen.org/ ) which is a nice
> extension of OCaml (i.e. modules + camlp4) to develop websites in a
> functional style.

I have been asked for more information about Ocsigen. Ocsigen is a research 
project aiming at finding a more robust way to program Web sites, using 
functional programming (continuations) and strong typing. It is not a new 
language but a set of modules for Objective Caml and a web server.

Main features:
 - Valid xhtml generation through static typing
 - Typing of Web interaction (links, forms...)
 - Automatic session handling
 - Javascript generation (AJAX) (work in progress)
 - typed database interaction (work in progress)

It allows to program web sites in a very concise and modular way, and makes 
the maintenance of large web sites much easier compared to usual Web 
programming tools.

Ocsigen was born in 2004 (even though the idea is older) and is now usable 
(see for example www.ocsigen.org). The syntax is not completely fixed yet (as 
we are experimenting with a lot of new ideas) but the development is very 
active and we hope to publish version 1 before the end of the year.

Vincent Balat

PS: For other research projects in the same style, see for example WebSiCoLa, 
Links, Hop, or Wash/CGI