From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.3 (2006-06-01) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=AWL autolearn=disabled version=3.1.3 X-Original-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Delivered-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Received: from mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.83]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id DAF4FBB84 for ; Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:52:15 +0200 (CEST) X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: Ap8DANOv3EjAXQImiGdsb2JhbACTIAEBARUiqgSBZA X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.33,315,1220220000"; d="scan'208";a="15392088" Received: from discorde.inria.fr ([192.93.2.38]) by mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP; 26 Sep 2008 18:52:15 +0200 Received: from mail1-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail1-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.82]) by discorde.inria.fr (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id m8QGqDXI006790 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128 verify=OK) for ; Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:52:15 +0200 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: Ap8DAEyw3EhQRFuwiGdsb2JhbACTIAEBARUiqX2BZA X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.33,315,1220220000"; d="scan'208";a="17804627" Received: from furbychan.cocan.org ([80.68.91.176]) by mail1-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP/TLS/AES256-SHA; 26 Sep 2008 18:52:15 +0200 Received: from rich by furbychan.cocan.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1KjGY7-0003nM-Fw; Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:52:11 +0100 Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:52:11 +0100 To: Arthur Chan Cc: Andrej.Bauer@andrej.com, Caml Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Teaching ocaml programming Message-ID: <20080926165211.GA9490@annexia.org> References: <48DCC7B8.4070700@fmf.uni-lj.si> <48DCDF9D.6040401@inescporto.pt> <48DCE49F.7000604@fmf.uni-lj.si> <74cabd9e0809260915v675c31w584653d597b7d92f@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <74cabd9e0809260915v675c31w584653d597b7d92f@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) From: Richard Jones X-Miltered: at discorde with ID 48DD133D.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail . ensmp . fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; ocaml:01 ocaml:01 emacs:01 gtk:01 compiler:01 26,:98 rescue:98 ubuntu:98 ubuntu:98 wrote:01 unix:01 caml-list:01 xemacs:02 allocated:02 consistent:02 On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 09:15:14AM -0700, Arthur Chan wrote: > Make sure your OCaml has prerequisites that involve some shittier language > like C, which is taught in a Unix environment with xemacs. Once the > students have seen how awful it can get and they associate the terrible > learning experience with C (what's with the lack of love for emacs anyway? > =/), then you come to the rescue. :-D For extra points, make sure they have to ensure that every error is checked and every error path out of the function must free up all resources that have been allocated ... > Btw, I wouldn't try to use OCaml with Ubuntu, or *any* recent language that > has been in development. Support is generally flaky. The mainline OCaml > that comes with Ubuntu is fine, but the gl+gtk support is broken. The > version of Eclipse that ships with Ubuntu is freaking ancient and won't > support the Scala plugin. From what I remember, 8.0.4 also shipped with > some fossilized version of Scala itself. [I'm going to diss Ubuntu here ... you know where I'm coming from] Ubuntu's OCaml support is very flaky. They don't have developers committed to it and take a random snapshot of what's in Debian. This has in the past led to serious brokenness where they've taken a snaphot in the middle of a rebuild-the-world compiler upgrade. Instead go with Debian (or Fedora) where there are developers making sure you get a consistent, working OCaml. Rich. -- Richard Jones Red Hat