RE: [Caml-list] OCaml IDEs for beginners?

["Gregory Morrisett" <jgm@CS.Cornell.EDU>]

On another note, last time I talked to Matthias, Shriram, and/or
Matthew,  they were talking about putting a "DrML" environment 
together.  I'm not sure whether they were shooting for an SML
or Ocaml environment.  

I actually think there's a lot more to putting together a good 
teaching IDE together (like DrScheme) than what people currently
have or could easily cobble together.  For instance, an integrated
algebraic stepper (for at least the functional subset of the language)
is really a nice thing to have.  Similarly, it would be nice
to have an environment browser which allows you to look through
the top-level environment to search for library bindings, see
module signatures, etc.  

Another thing that would be really nice is to have incremental
type checking integrated with the editor so that, for instance,
you could mouse over an identifier or expression and get its type.
And of course, any improvement in type error messages as well
as parse errors.  The latter is really problematic with Ocaml's
syntax (old or revised).  

It might also be nice to have a pretty-printer which can put
code into a somewhat canonical style.  For instance, I require
students to put types on top-level definitions and have certain
layout requirements.  It would be nice if there were a layout
checker.

And of course, this all needs to be modifiable for an instructor
so that they can turn on/off features in language levels.  

-Greg
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