From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Original-To: caml-list@sympa.inria.fr Delivered-To: caml-list@sympa.inria.fr Received: from mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.83]) by sympa.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4760E7EE51 for ; Tue, 28 May 2013 20:55:01 +0200 (CEST) Received-SPF: None (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of misterherr@freenet.de) identity=pra; client-ip=195.4.92.93; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="misterherr@freenet.de"; x-sender="misterherr@freenet.de"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible Received-SPF: None (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of misterherr@freenet.de) identity=mailfrom; client-ip=195.4.92.93; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="misterherr@freenet.de"; x-sender="misterherr@freenet.de"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible Received-SPF: None (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of postmaster@mout3.freenet.de) identity=helo; client-ip=195.4.92.93; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="misterherr@freenet.de"; x-sender="postmaster@mout3.freenet.de"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AjkCADD8pFHDBFxddmdsb2JhbABZgmdRgzu+Y4EHFg4BCgsLCREGJYIjAQEFI0oLEQsYAgIFFgsCAgkDAgECAUUTCAEBh3YBEwMIqmeIMwmBNQGHaYEmjCqBVBaCK4ETA5hkhHWOMw X-IPAS-Result: AjkCADD8pFHDBFxddmdsb2JhbABZgmdRgzu+Y4EHFg4BCgsLCREGJYIjAQEFI0oLEQsYAgIFFgsCAgkDAgECAUUTCAEBh3YBEwMIqmeIMwmBNQGHaYEmjCqBVBaCK4ETA5hkhHWOMw X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.87,759,1363129200"; d="scan'208";a="19344377" Received: from mout3.freenet.de ([195.4.92.93]) by mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP/TLS/DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA; 28 May 2013 20:55:00 +0200 Received: from [195.4.92.142] (helo=mjail2.freenet.de) by mout3.freenet.de with esmtpa (ID misterherr@freenet.de) (port 25) (Exim 4.80.1 #3) id 1UhP2x-0002Ji-BF for caml-list@inria.fr; Tue, 28 May 2013 20:54:59 +0200 Received: from localhost ([::1]:54991 helo=mjail2.freenet.de) by mjail2.freenet.de with esmtpa (ID misterherr@freenet.de) (Exim 4.80.1 #3) id 1UhP2w-00016X-TA for caml-list@inria.fr; Tue, 28 May 2013 20:54:59 +0200 Received: from [195.4.92.15] (port=33950 helo=5.mx.freenet.de) by mjail2.freenet.de with esmtpa (ID misterherr@freenet.de) (Exim 4.80.1 #3) id 1UhOzE-0001pi-V9 for caml-list@inria.fr; Tue, 28 May 2013 20:51:08 +0200 Received: from e177061078.adsl.alicedsl.de ([85.177.61.78]:56057 helo=suse123-acer.home.loc) by 5.mx.freenet.de with esmtpsa (ID misterherr@freenet.de) (TLSv1:DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA:256) (port 465) (Exim 4.80.1 #3) id 1UhOzE-0004zf-LH for caml-list@inria.fr; Tue, 28 May 2013 20:51:08 +0200 Message-ID: <51A4FC9B.4040004@freenet.de> Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 20:51:07 +0200 From: "Mr. Herr" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130329 Thunderbird/17.0.5 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: caml-list@inria.fr References: <20130523235355.GI6510@siouxsie> <20130526150008.GA2014@siouxsie> <20130526234911.41866xca7wgoirfb@webmail.in-berlin.de> <51A30E01.5070300@freenet.de> <20130527185345.e01a7733ac652f89f4e400f7@mega-nerd.com> <51A353BE.5030009@freenet.de> <51A40590.4090501@riken.jp> In-Reply-To: <51A40590.4090501@riken.jp> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: Problems to get larger user base ... (Re: [Caml-list] OCaml's variables) Am 28.05.2013 03:17, schrieb Francois Berenger: > On 05/27/2013 09:38 PM, Mr. Herr wrote: >> >> Am 27.05.2013 10:53, schrieb Erik de Castro Lopo: >>> Mr. Herr wrote: >>>> I think the biggest problem is you generally can only learn FP and/or Ocaml at >>>> university, because: >>>> >>>> The FP terminology is at first (and a long time after starting learning it), >>>> without >>>> a teacher, not understandable. >>> Sorry, that's simply not true. >>> >>> I studied my last univeristy course in 1992. I picked up Ocaml in 2004 >>> and Haskell in 2008. Before Ocaml, the only functional language I had >>> used was scheme in the late 1980s. >>> >> >> Scheme is terribly functional, so to say, and is absolutely immerged in the Lispy >> slang. >> All your knowlegde in C, Java, PHP, Assembler, Tcl/Tk, Pascal ... will not help you >> there. >> >> I started as an IBM /370 Systems Admin in the late nineties, and it took me months of >> reading in 2012 >> to get some understanding about what the heck the scheme people are talking about. >> >> Scheme is even a better example for the problems non university learners encounter, >> than Ocaml, IMO. > > A very good book on scheme (which is also quite a deep introduction to computer > science if you read the whole thing in fact): > > "structure and interpretation of computer programs" > > http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html > Yes, a good book. The author takes care to only use terms and features he explained before. I started working through it, then I thought there must be an easier way to write some system admin scripts like checking if IPv6 is functional, ssh-agent has identities, ... I will come back to the book. I find for myself Ocaml is indeed easier to start with than Scheme for a FP beginner. But this is the point: do we need computer science to start with functional programming? Before someone answers "computer science will be good for you" - other programming languages do not have this requirement. /Str.