[Caml-list] Attn: Development Editor, Latest OCaml Weekly News

[Alan Schmitt <alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org>]

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Hello

Here is the latest OCaml Weekly News, for the week of May 17 to 24,
2022.

Table of Contents
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ML Family Workshop 2022: Final Call for Presentations
Dune 3.2.0
Hardcaml MIPS CPU Learning Project and Blog
A tutorial on parallel programming in OCaml 5
Old CWN


ML Family Workshop 2022: Final Call for Presentations
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════

  Archive:
  <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ml-family-workshop-2022-final-call-for-presentations/9877/1>


Benoit Montagu announced
────────────────────────

  We are happy to invite submissions to the *ML Family Workshop 2022*,
  to be held during the ICFP conference week on Thursday, September
  15th.

  The ML family workshop warmly welcomes submission touching on the
  programming languages traditionally seen as part of the “ML family”
  (Standard ML, OCaml, F#, CakeML, SML#, Manticore, MetaOCaml, etc.).
  The scope of the workshop includes all aspects of the design,
  semantics, theory, application, implementation, and teaching of the
  members of the ML family. We also encourage presentations from related
  languages (such as Haskell, Scala, Rust, Nemerle, Links, Koka, F*,
  Eff, ATS, etc), to exchange experience of further developing ML ideas.

  The workshop does not have proceedings, making it the perfect venue to
  run some ideas with the community or present some work in progress
  within a friendly environment. The PC has a broad expertise and
  submissions are 3 pages long: when in doubt, just submit!

  Currently, the workshop is scheduled to be an in-person event. We will
  give to the authors of accepted abstracts the opportunity to give
  their talks remotely if necessary, in case they could not travel.

  See the detailed CFP online on the ICFP website:
  <https://icfp22.sigplan.org/home/mlfamilyworkshop-2022#Call-for-Presentations>


Important dates
╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

  • Friday 3th June (any time zone): Abstract submission deadline
  • Tuesday 28th June: Author notification
  • Thursday 15th August: ML Family Workshop


Program committee
╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

  • Kenichi Asai (Ochanomizu University)
  • Arthur Azevedo de Amorim (Boston University)
  • Dariusz Biernacki (University of Wrocław)
  • Stephen Dolan (Jane Street)
  • Kavon Farvardin (Apple)
  • Armaël Guéneau (Inria)
  • Sam Lindley (University of Edinburgh)
  • Guido Martínez (CIFASIS-CONICET)
  • Keiko Nakata (SAP Innovation Center Potsdam)
  • Lionel Parreaux (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
  • Matija Pretnar (University of Ljubljana)
  • Mike Rainey (Carnegie Mellon University)
  • Yann Régis-Gianas (Nomadic Labs)
  • KC Sivaramakrishnan (IIT Madras and Tarides)
  • Ningning Xie (University of Cambridge)

  Chair: Benoît Montagu (Inria)


Submission details
╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

  See the online CFP for the details on the expected submission format.

  Submissions must be uploaded to the workshop submission website
  <https://ml2022.hotcrp.com/> before the submission deadline.


Dune 3.2.0
══════════

  Archive: <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-dune-3-2-0/9892/1>


Rudi Grinberg announced
───────────────────────

  On behalf of the dune team, I'm pleased to announce the availability
  of version 3.2.0. This release contains few new features, but is
  packed with bug fixes and usability improvements. In particular, I'd
  like to point out that we've continued to improve the user experience
  with the watch mode. I encourage you all to try it out if you haven't
  already.

  Happy Hacking.


3.2.0 (17-05-2022)
╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

  • Fixed `dune describe workspace --with-deps' so that it correctly
    handles Reason files, as well as files any other dialect. (#5701,
    @esope)

  • Disable alerts when compiling code in vendored directories (#5683,
    @NathanReb)

  • Fixed `dune describe --with-deps', that crashed when some
    preprocessing was required in a dune file using `per_module'.
    (#5682, fixes #5680, @esope)

  • Add `$ dune describe pp' to print the preprocssed ast of
    sources. (#5615, fixes #4470, @cannorin)

  • Report dune file evaluation errors concurrently. In the same way we
    report build errors. (#5655, @rgrinberg)

  • Watch mode now default to clearing the terminal on rebuild (#5636,
    fixes, #5216, @rgrinberg)

  • The output of jobs that finished but were cancelled is now
    omitted. (#5631, fixes #5482, @rgrinberg)

  • Allows to configure all the default destination directories with
    `./configure' (adds `bin', `sbin', `data', `libexec'). Use
    `OPAM_SWITCH_PREFIX' instead of calling the `opam' binaries in `dune
    install'. Fix handling of multiple `libdir' in `./configure' for
    handling `/usr/lib/ocaml/' and `/usr/local/lib/ocaml'. In `dune
    install' forbid relative directories in `libdir', `docdir' and
    others specific directory setting because their handling was
    inconsistent (#5516, fixes #3978 and #5455, @bobot)

  • `--terminal-persistence=clear-on-rebuild' will no longer destroy
    scrollback on some terminals (#5646, @rgrinberg)

  • Add a fmt command as a shortcut of `dune build @fmt --auto-promote'
    (#5574, @tmattio)

  • Watch mode now tracks copied external files, external directories
    for dependencies, dune files in OCaml syntax, files used by
    `include' stanzas, dune-project, opam files, libraries builtin with
    compiler, and foreign sources (#5627, #5645, #5652, #5656, #5672,
    #5691, #5722, fixes #5331, @rgrinberg)

  • Improve metrics for cram tests. Include test names in the event and
    add a category for cram tests (#5626, @rgrinberg)

  • Allow specifying multiple licenses in project file (#5579, fixes
    #5574, @liyishuai)

  • Match `glob_files' only against files in external directories
    (#5614, fixes #5540, @rgrinberg)

  • Add pid's to chrome trace output (#5617, @rgrinberg)

  • Fix race when creating local cache directory (#5613, fixes #5461,
    @rgrinberg)

  • Add `not' to boolean expressions (#5610, fix #5503, @rgrinberg)

  • Fix relative dependencies outside the workspace (#4035, fixes #5572,
    @bobot)

  • Allow to specify `--prefix' via the environment variable
    `DUNE_INSTALL_PREFIX' (#5589, @vapourismo)

  • Dune-site.plugin: add support for `archive(native|byte, plugin)'
    used in the wild before findlib documented `plugin(native|byte)' in
    2015 (#5518, @bobot)

  • Fix a bug where Dune would not correctly interpret `META' files in
    alternative layout (ie when the META file is named `META.$pkg'). The
    `Llvm' bindings were affected by this issue. (#5619, fixes #5616,
    @nojb)

  • Support `(binaries)' in `(env)' in dune-workspace files (#5560, fix
    #5555, @emillon)

  • (mdx) stanza: add support for (locks). (#5628, fixes #5489,
    @emillon)

  • (mdx) stanza: support including files in different directories using
    relative paths, and provide better error messages when paths are
    invalid (#5703, #5704, fixes #5596, @emillon)

  • Fix ctypes rules for external lib names which aren't valid ocaml
    names (#5667, fixes #5511, @Khady)


Hardcaml MIPS CPU Learning Project and Blog
═══════════════════════════════════════════

  Archive:
  <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/hardcaml-mips-cpu-learning-project-and-blog/8088/12>


Alexander (Sasha) Skvortsov announced
─────────────────────────────────────

  Hi everyone! Last fall, we completed our original plan for this
  project, rewriting the verilog MIPS CPU we had designed for a class
  into Hardcaml. A few weeks later, we got an invite to video-meet with
  the Hardcaml team to talk about our experience. They even sent us
  actual Arty A-7 FPGAs so we could test out our simulation on real
  hardware!

  Junior year ended up much busier than expected, and although we had
  gotten our code onto the FPGAs by January, we’ve only just now fully
  finished our project. Our blog now has 2 bonus installments:

  1. [Running Hardcaml on an actual FPGA]. Here, we lit up LEDs to
     display the output of a hardcoded program.
  2. [Hardcaml MIPS and I/O]. Here, we restructured our CPU so that
     programs can communicate with an external device using UART.

  With these changes, our full design is now a simplified but realistic
  processor that can run meaningful programs.

  Thank you very much to @andyman, @fyquah95, Ben Devlin, and the rest
  of the Jane Street FPGA team for creating Hardcaml, meeting with us,
  and answering our numerous questions throughout this process. Thank
  you also to @yaron_minsky and Jane Street for sending us the FPGAs to
  try out our code.

  This has been an incredibly interesting, challenging, and rewarding
  journey. We hope that our blog posts and sample project are useful for
  learning Hardcaml in the future, and welcome any questions or
  comments.


[Running Hardcaml on an actual FPGA]
<https://ceramichacker.com/blog/27-1312-running-hardcaml-on-an-actual-fpga>

[Hardcaml MIPS and I/O]
<https://ceramichacker.com/blog/34-1412-hardcaml-mips-and-io>


A tutorial on parallel programming in OCaml 5
═════════════════════════════════════════════

  Archive:
  <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/a-tutorial-on-parallel-programming-in-ocaml-5/9896/1>


KC Sivaramakrishnan announced
─────────────────────────────

  I ran a hands-on tutorial on the new parallel programming primitives
  in the upcoming OCaml 5 at the Tarides off-site last week. It covers
  the low-level parallelism primitives exposed by the OCaml 5 compiler
  as well as high-level parallel programming using `domainslib'. I hope
  you like it and find it useful. Please feel free to open issues if you
  find anything amiss.

  <https://github.com/kayceesrk/ocaml5-tutorial>


Alain De Vos asked and Olivier Nicole replied
─────────────────────────────────────────────

        As it is not immediately clear for me, does it uses
        threads , green threads, processes , fibers ? And who is
        responsible for the scheduling ,the Ocaml application or
        the underlying operating system ?

  Each domain corresponds to one system thread. The scheduling between
  them is therefore performed by the operating system.

  The tutorial only covers domains, which are the way to perform
  /parallelism/ in OCaml 5. To use /concurrency/ (e.g.  having several
  IO-depending operations that run concurrently on the same core), the
  main mechanism is effects (which at the level of the runtime system,
  are implemented using small stack segments called fibers), as in the
  [eio library]. Effects allow such libraries to provide a form a
  lightweight threads (aka green threads) whose scheduling is
  implemented in the OCaml application using effect mechanisms.


[eio library]
<https://github.com/ocaml-multicore/eio#design-note-capabilities>


UnixJunkie then said
────────────────────

  Here is a very simple tutorial on parallel programming in OCaml: use
  parany !  <https://github.com/UnixJunkie/parany> For OCaml 5, use the
  right branch of parany:
  <https://github.com/UnixJunkie/parany/tree/domains>

  Happy hacking!


Old CWN
═══════

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  [Alan Schmitt]


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[Alan Schmitt] <https://alan.petitepomme.net/>


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