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=1.0 required=5.0 tests=AWL,SPF_NEUTRAL 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 A7D36BC69 for ; Wed, 17 Oct 2007 02:36:41 +0200 (CEST) X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AgAAAKr1FEfAXQInh2dsb2JhbACOTgIBCAopgSc X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.21,286,1188770400"; d="scan'208";a="3127562" Received: from concorde.inria.fr ([192.93.2.39]) by mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP; 17 Oct 2007 02:36:41 +0200 Received: from mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr (mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.104]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id l9H0aaWC003892 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-SHA bits=128 verify=OK) for ; Wed, 17 Oct 2007 02:36:41 +0200 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AgAAAM71FEfY8SQNhmdsb2JhbACOTgIBCAQGCQYTB4En X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.21,286,1188770400"; d="scan'208";a="4621264" Received: from mzpi4.forethought.net ([216.241.36.13]) by mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr with ESMTP; 17 Oct 2007 02:36:36 +0200 Received: from [216.241.35.41] (helo=[10.0.0.2]) by mz2.forethought.net with esmtp (Exim 4.51) id 1Ihwtm-0005oT-H8 for caml-list@inria.fr; Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:36:34 -0600 Message-ID: <47155912.6010403@gushee.net> Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:36:34 -0600 From: Matt Gushee User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (X11/20070802) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Re: A labltk book? References: <4713987F.6080808@msu.edu> <200710151830.52306.jon@ffconsultancy.com> In-Reply-To: <200710151830.52306.jon@ffconsultancy.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 47155914.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail . ensmp . fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; labltk:01 ocaml:01 o'reilly:01 ocaml:01 labltk:01 lablgtk:01 gtk:01 lablgtk:01 o'reilly:01 translated:01 wrote:01 wrote:01 caml-list:01 seems:03 programming:03 Jon Harrop wrote: > On Monday 15 October 2007 17:42:39 Jeff Shaw wrote: >> This thread was quite derailed... should I then assume there's very >> little interest in such a book? > > I think there would be far more interest in an introductory book on OCaml > published as cheaply as possible through someone like O'Reilly, that includes > a chapter on GUI programming. Or a IDE that makes it as easy as possible to > get started with OCaml that might be written using Tk. Could be ... some time ago (2 years, maybe?) I proposed the idea of (me) writing a book on LablTk; there was very little response, favorable or otherwise, but at least one person thought it would be nice to have a book on GUI programming in OCaml, perhaps including LablTk but with greater emphasis on LablGTK. Even if I had agreed with the idea, at that time I had little experience with (Labl)GTK. But I don't agree with the idea: you could write a book about GUI *design*, but that should be neither toolkit-specific nor language-specific. On the other hand, a book about GUI programming techniques in a specific language will probably appeal mainly to people with specific projects in mind, which implies that they probably want to learn one good GUI toolkit ... which in the case of OCaml would have to be LablGTK. I realize Tk is progressing and making some much-wanted improvements, but to me it seems like too little, too late. As for Jon's idea, sure, great! But I wonder if any major publisher would take it on. After all, O'Reilly *has* an introductory OCaml book; it would need to be updated and translated, but that's still much easier than creating a new one. Yet they don't seem interested in doing that. So some brave soul might have to self-publish something. -- Matt Gushee : Bantam - lightweight file manager : matt.gushee.net/software/bantam/ : : RASCL's A Simple Configuration Language : matt.gushee.net/rascl/ :