questions

questions

[John Prince]

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I'm new to ocaml and coming (most recently) from ruby, so I was wondering if
there are equivalents to some of the things that I find handy in ruby:

1) Is there something comparable to RSpec (i.e., behavior driven
development)?  A recommendation on which testing module to use?

2) Is there something like 'ri' in ocaml?  (commandline access to basic
documentation)

3) Is there consensus on the best/fastest xml parser?

4) What kind of YAML support is there?  I've seen an ad-hoc writeup to read
in JSON in an ocaml program, but I'm much more familiar with YAML.

Where is the message archive located?  Is it searchable?

Can someone point me to the best resource(s) for newbies?  I have been
reading through what's out there, but its always nice to get a
recommendation.

Thanks,
John

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Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Stéphane Glondu]

John Prince a écrit :
> 4) What kind of YAML support is there?  I've seen an ad-hoc writeup to
> read in JSON in an ocaml program, but I'm much more familiar with YAML.

http://ocaml-syck.sourceforge.net/

It is packaged in Debian. I've never used it, though...


Cheers,

-- 
Stéphane

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Jon Harrop]

I'll answer the questions that I can...

On Tuesday 24 March 2009 19:42:40 John Prince wrote:
> I'm new to ocaml and coming (most recently) from ruby, so I was wondering
> if there are equivalents to some of the things that I find handy in ruby:

You may find the OCaml Beginners mailing list hosted by Yahoo to be more 
productive for simple questions.

> 2) Is there something like 'ri' in ocaml?  (commandline access to basic
> documentation)

I highly recommend ocamlbrowser but it is not CLI.

> 3) Is there consensus on the best/fastest xml parser?

I use XML-Light whenever it can handle it (it supports only a small part of 
XML but is very easy to use) and PXP otherwise. You might also check out the 
well-reputed Expat bindings but I have not tried them.

> Where is the message archive located?

For this list, here:

  http://caml.inria.fr/pub/ml-archives/caml-list/index.en.html

> Is it searchable? 

Google indexes it well.

> Can someone point me to the best resource(s) for newbies?

Start at the community OCaml tutorial wiki and search the links therein.

  http://www.ocaml-tutorial.org/

There is some interesting propaganda here:

  http://www.ffconsultancy.com/ocaml/benefits/

> I have been reading through what's out there, but its always nice to get a
> recommendation.

Two beginners books are my own "OCaml for Scientists" and Tim Rentsch's "The 
Objective CAML Programming Language". Hopefully Jason Hickey's book will be 
published this year.

-- 
Dr Jon Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/?e

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Richard Jones]

On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 01:42:40PM -0600, John Prince wrote:
> 1) Is there something comparable to RSpec (i.e., behavior driven
> development)?  A recommendation on which testing module to use?

Possibly ounit?  To be honest test-driven development is more useful
with dynamic languages, because the compilers for those languages pick
up so few errors.  In OCaml the compiler is much more thorough, and by
the time your program "passes" the compiler, it's bug free!  (Well,
that's the theory anyhow :-)

> 2) Is there something like 'ri' in ocaml?  (commandline access to basic
> documentation)

I usually use this low-tech but very effective solution:

  cd $(ocamlc -where)
  less <module>.mli

One catch is that the first letter in <module> is lowercase, whereas
module names themselves start with an uppercase letter.
eg: unix.mli vs Unix

> 3) Is there consensus on the best/fastest xml parser?

There are certainly several to choose from :-)

> 4) What kind of YAML support is there?  I've seen an ad-hoc writeup to read
> in JSON in an ocaml program, but I'm much more familiar with YAML.

ocaml-syck (not used it).  For JSON use json-wheel and/or json-static.
I've recently become a fan of s-expressions because it's ridiculously
easy to write s-expressions from any other language and then import
those directly into OCaml data structures.  (See the sexplib library /
syntax extension).  I have been "liberating" a lot of data from Python
programs this way.

  http://ocaml-syck.sourceforge.net/
  http://martin.jambon.free.fr/json-wheel.html
  http://www.ocaml.info/home/ocaml_sources.html#sexplib310

> Where is the message archive located?  Is it searchable?

Google ...

> Can someone point me to the best resource(s) for newbies?  I have been
> reading through what's out there, but its always nice to get a
> recommendation.

You should definitely join the ocaml_beginners mailing list.

INRIA have beginners' resources here:

  http://caml.inria.fr/resources/index.en.html

I maintain this site, along with dozens of external contributors:
  http://www.ocaml-tutorial.org/
Scroll down for plenty of external links ...

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Daniel Bünzli]

Le 25 mars 09 à 01:17, Richard Jones a écrit :

>> 3) Is there consensus on the best/fastest xml parser?
>
> There are certainly several to choose from :-)

If you intend to parse real (in the sense not under your own editing  
control) xml documents the choice shrinks down drastically.

For pure caml solutions I'll suggest you either pxp or xmlm but I'm  
biaised.

In any case you'll find a list of alternatives here [1]

Best,

Daniel

[1] http://caml.inria.fr/cgi-bin/hump.fr.cgi?sort=0&browse=49

Re: questions

[Michael Ekstrand]

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John Prince <john.prince@colorado.edu> writes:
> 1) Is there something comparable to RSpec (i.e., behavior driven
> development)?  A recommendation on which testing module to use?

I have found OUnit to be fairly natural.  I haven't used it much, but it
was easy to pick up having had some exposure to JUnit, py.test, and a
Lisp test framework or two.

> 3) Is there consensus on the best/fastest xml parser?

I've quite enjoyed Xmlm.  It is an event-based pull parser, where you
set up an event stream and then ask it for each event in turn.  By far
the easiest XML parsing paradigm I've used (short of tree querying
systems such as XPath or LINQ); pattern matching over events results in
simpler code than the inversion-of-control usage in a SAX or expat
parser.

- Michael

-- 
mouse, n: A device for pointing at the xterm in which you want to type.
Confused by the strange files?  I cryptographically sign my messages.
For more information see <http://www.elehack.net/resources/gpg>.

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Re: [Caml-list] questions

[David Rajchenbach-Teller]

On Tue, 2009-03-24 at 13:42 -0600, John Prince wrote:
> 2) Is there something like 'ri' in ocaml?  (commandline access to
> basic documentation)

There's nothing out-of-the-box.
In OCaml Batteries Included, you can use #man.
So 
  #man "print";;
will open your web browser with the documentation of "print".

Cheers,
 David


-- 
David Teller-Rajchenbach
 Security of Distributed Systems
  http://www.univ-orleans.fr/lifo/Members/David.Teller
   « Ce matin Un crétin A tué un chercheur. » (air connu)
   Latest News of French Research: System being liquidated. Researchers angry.

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[John Prince]

Thanks for all the helpful responses!  They are greatly appreciated.

--John

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[xah lee]

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2009/3/24 John Prince <john.prince@colorado.edu>

> I'm new to ocaml and coming (most recently) from ruby,

 ...
> Can someone point me to the best resource(s) for newbies?  I have been
> reading through what's out there, but its always nice to get a
> recommendation.
>

I also started learning OCaml this year.  Here's my personal experience and
recommendations on tutorial that are freely available:

Begin with 20 min reading at Wikipedia to get some context of the lang as
perceived by programers in general:
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocaml

The following are quality material, that you can get hands on experience as
a intro, each worth about 8 hours of study:

• Ocaml for Scientists, by Jon Harrop, chapter 1 free:
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_for_scientists/chapter1.html

• “Introduction to Caml” by Scott Smith of Johns Hopkins U. A lecture note.
http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~scott/pl/lectures/caml-intro.html

The above 2 are similar. Once you did the above, you might want a full
length tutorial, treating major aspects of the lang in some detail. Here's 2
i found available:

• Developing Applications With Objective Caml, By Emmanuel Chailloux -
Pascal Manoury - Bruno Pagano at:
 http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/html/index.html

• Introduction to Objective Caml, by Jason Hickey, 2008. (draft)
http://www.cs.caltech.edu/courses/cs134/cs134b/book.pdf

Currently, i'm still reading chapter 2 of the Emmanuel book.
Started to read Jason too. (i like concurrently reading multiple references)

I also started to write my own. Expect it to be in some usable form in a
year. It is written for practical programers, and those from so-called
“scripting” lang background (e.g. php, perl, python, javascript,
Mathematica, newlisp, tcl, ruby), and with the view point that prog langs
are primarily syntax (i.e. a computatable math notation.).

• OCaml Basics
  http://xahlee.org/ocaml/ocaml_basics.html

---------------------------------------

the following are the most visible ocaml tutorials, but are low quality,
blog like, full of misleading characterizations, irrevelancies, misleading
comparisons. The type that you'd spend hours on and got more confused,
regardless whether you are a expert logician or expert industrial programer.
These tutorial's quality and nature are similar to the ones you'd find of
the freely bundled official tutorials from perl, java, or even haskell.
Typically written as a revised diary of learning experiences by student
programers, or by academicians who are llliterate in technical writing.

• intro to ocaml, from official site
http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/manual003.html

• “Objective CAML Tutorial”, most cited tutorial on the web
http://www.ocaml-tutorial.org/

There are 3 or so more ocaml tutorials i've looked on the web, from the
first page of google search with word “ocaml tutorial”. I don't think they
are not worth your time.

-------------------------

I'd be good if the ocaml managers perhaps thru some arrangement, to borrow
Jon Harrop's chapter 1, or other quality sources, in replacement of the
tutorial on the official site. Because, a quailty tutorial bundled with the
official release has great impact. The official tutorial makes the first
impression of the lang for most people.

  Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄

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Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Kuba Ober]

>
> the following are the most visible ocaml tutorials, but are low  
> quality, blog like, full of misleading characterizations,  
> irrevelancies, misleading comparisons. The type that you'd spend  
> hours on and got more confused, regardless whether you are a expert  
> logician or expert industrial programer. These tutorial's quality  
> and nature are similar to the ones you'd find of the freely bundled  
> official tutorials from perl, java, or even haskell. Typically  
> written as a revised diary of learning experiences by student  
> programers, or by academicians who are llliterate in technical  
> writing.
>
> • intro to ocaml, from official site
> http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/manual003.html
>
> • “Objective CAML Tutorial”, most cited tutorial on the web
> http://www.ocaml-tutorial.org/
>
> There are 3 or so more ocaml tutorials i've looked on the web, from  
> the first page of google search with word “ocaml tutorial”. I don't  
> think they are not worth your time.
>
> -------------------------
>
> I'd be good if the ocaml managers perhaps thru some arrangement, to  
> borrow Jon Harrop's chapter 1, or other quality sources, in  
> replacement of the tutorial on the official site. Because, a quailty  
> tutorial bundled with the official release has great impact. The  
> official tutorial makes the first impression of the lang for most  
> people.
>
>   Xah

There must be some reason why the manual and other materials on the  
official site are of such poor quality. I've thought a bit about it,  
and the only reason I see is that the authors do not have a feel for  
what it takes to learn/understand/use that language. They obviously  
know it all through, but that's still far removed from being able to  
explain it to someone else. I don't know, of course, how it is that  
one understands something "well" yet is not able to explain it to  
somebody else. To me, that's very fragile knowledge. I always thought  
that deep understanding implies an ability to extract what's  
important, and to lead the other person from some "basics" (whatever  
they may be) to the conclusion. Some experience in imperative  
languages can be perhaps expected of the OCaml beginners. But the  
manual, the official tutorial, and even ocaml-tutorial, fall short of  
being really useful - for me. Personally, I found them next to  
useless, but that perhaps has to do with my own shortcomings.

Books that lag behind the current release's features are not all that  
great either -- you find a book that's a good match to your needs, and  
then, after a while, find that you miss on a lot of good stuff that's  
not mentioned in the book. I have two examples of such books: Jon's  
book, and Marcelo DiPierro's web2py book. Both are very good books  
because the authors have a feel for what it takes to understand what  
they talk about. Yet both miss out on some newer features of OCaml and  
web2py, respectively -- features that would be best explained by the  
very same authors!

Cheers, Kuba

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Martin Jambon]

Kuba Ober wrote:
> There must be some reason why the manual and other materials on the
> official site are of such poor quality. I've thought a bit about it, and
> the only reason I see is that the authors do not have a feel for what it
> takes to learn/understand/use that language. They obviously know it all
> through, but that's still far removed from being able to explain it to
> someone else. I don't know, of course, how it is that one understands
> something "well" yet is not able to explain it to somebody else. To me,
> that's very fragile knowledge. I always thought that deep understanding
> implies an ability to extract what's important, and to lead the other
> person from some "basics" (whatever they may be) to the conclusion.

I can see one reason: like many other French OCaml programmers, I learned
OCaml at school (it was in 1998). French teachers don't rely heavily on a
book. There is however one book that covers the essentials, "Le Langage Caml"
by Weis and Leroy, which despite using the Caml Light dialect is the most
enlightening programming book I've ever got to read. For the rest, there is
the reference manual of OCaml and plenty of source code all around the web.

I think that's why there is not much more incentive to write a complete
"replace-the-teacher" text book on OCaml written by the core OCaml developers,
who are mostly a French team. Besides, it's a lot of work and doesn't make money.

Of course there are now a few great books and tutorials on OCaml in English,
none of them having an official status.


Martin

-- 
http://mjambon.com/

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Thomas Gazagnaire]

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I have also learned ocaml with "Le Langage Caml" and I really enjoyed this
book (it was one of the first book on language programming that I rode).
It might a be a good idea to update the content of this book and to
translate it into ocaml/english :-)

Thomas

2009/3/31 Martin Jambon <martin.jambon@ens-lyon.org>

> Kuba Ober wrote:
> > There must be some reason why the manual and other materials on the
> > official site are of such poor quality. I've thought a bit about it, and
> > the only reason I see is that the authors do not have a feel for what it
> > takes to learn/understand/use that language. They obviously know it all
> > through, but that's still far removed from being able to explain it to
> > someone else. I don't know, of course, how it is that one understands
> > something "well" yet is not able to explain it to somebody else. To me,
> > that's very fragile knowledge. I always thought that deep understanding
> > implies an ability to extract what's important, and to lead the other
> > person from some "basics" (whatever they may be) to the conclusion.
>
> I can see one reason: like many other French OCaml programmers, I learned
> OCaml at school (it was in 1998). French teachers don't rely heavily on a
> book. There is however one book that covers the essentials, "Le Langage
> Caml"
> by Weis and Leroy, which despite using the Caml Light dialect is the most
> enlightening programming book I've ever got to read. For the rest, there is
> the reference manual of OCaml and plenty of source code all around the web.
>
> I think that's why there is not much more incentive to write a complete
> "replace-the-teacher" text book on OCaml written by the core OCaml
> developers,
> who are mostly a French team. Besides, it's a lot of work and doesn't make
> money.
>
> Of course there are now a few great books and tutorials on OCaml in
> English,
> none of them having an official status.
>
>
> Martin
>
> --
> http://mjambon.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management:
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> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>

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Re: [Caml-list] questions

[David MENTRE]

Hello,

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 16:44, Martin Jambon <martin.jambon@ens-lyon.org> wrote:
> There is however one book that covers the essentials, "Le Langage Caml"
> by Weis and Leroy, which despite using the Caml Light dialect is the most
> enlightening programming book I've ever got to read.

I heartily agree. It's ability to show you how to make a grep or a
simple compiler in a few pages of OCaml and explanations is really an
enlightenment. Probably one of the best computer book I ever read.

Unfortunately, this book is out of print and hard to find.

Yours,
d.

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Jon Harrop]

On Wednesday 01 April 2009 20:13:41 David MENTRE wrote:
> Unfortunately, this book is out of print and hard to find.

Incidentally, if anyone out there is still sitting on such a (good) book I'd 
be interested in publishing it for them. The result won't be as cheap as an 
O'Reilly because our overheads are higher but at least it would actually get 
published. Alternatively, I can tell anyone exactly what they'd need to get 
started self-publishing and they could do it themselves.

-- 
Dr Jon Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/?e

Re : [Caml-list] questions

[Matthieu Wipliez]

Isn't the book written in French? (I mean "Le langage Caml"...).
It could be nice to translate it in English, at least to have a larger base of readers, and adapt the examples from Caml Light to Objective Caml (I don't know how much the syntaxes differ though)

just my two cents,

Cheers
Matthieu



----- Message d'origine ----
> De : Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com>
> À : caml-list@yquem.inria.fr
> Envoyé le : Mercredi, 1 Avril 2009, 21h27mn 25s
> Objet : Re: [Caml-list] questions
> 
> On Wednesday 01 April 2009 20:13:41 David MENTRE wrote:
> > Unfortunately, this book is out of print and hard to find.
> 
> Incidentally, if anyone out there is still sitting on such a (good) book I'd 
> be interested in publishing it for them. The result won't be as cheap as an 
> O'Reilly because our overheads are higher but at least it would actually get 
> published. Alternatively, I can tell anyone exactly what they'd need to get 
> started self-publishing and they could do it themselves.
> 
> -- 
> Dr Jon Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
> http://www.ffconsultancy.com/?e
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management:
> http://yquem.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/caml-list
> Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs

Re: Re : [Caml-list] questions

[David MENTRE]

Hello,

On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 22:23, Matthieu Wipliez <mwipliez@yahoo.fr> wrote:
> Isn't the book written in French? (I mean "Le langage Caml"...).

Yes.

> It could be nice to translate it in English, at least to have a larger base of readers, and adapt the examples from Caml Light to Objective Caml (I don't know how much the syntaxes differ though)

The syntax is very close for the subset of Caml used in the book.

However, judging from the lack of availability of this book even in
French, there might an issue in the agreement between the authors
(Leroy & Weis) and the publisher. I'm suspecting the authors are
unable to re-publish the book elsewhere.

Yours,
david

Re: LLC book [was: Questions]

[Xavier Leroy]

>> It could be nice to translate it in English, at least to have a
>>   larger base of readers, and adapt the examples from Caml Light to
>>   Objective Caml (I don't know how much the syntaxes differ though)
> 
> The syntax is very close for the subset of Caml used in the book.

Right.  Parts of the standard library changed, though.

> However, judging from the lack of availability of this book even in
> French, there might an issue in the agreement between the authors
> (Leroy & Weis) and the publisher. I'm suspecting the authors are
> unable to re-publish the book elsewhere.

The publisher (Dunod) holds all rights except for an English
translation (Pierre Weis and I reserved those rights).  There is a
procedure to ask the publisher to relinquish its rights if it decides
not to print the book again, but that procedure can take up to 1 year (!).

All in all, I'm not sure it's worth the effort to resurrect this old
text, but if a group of motivated volunteers arise, let's discuss it
privately.

- Xavier Leroy

Re: [Caml-list] Re: LLC book [was: Questions]

[Alp Mestan]

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On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 10:06 AM, Xavier Leroy <Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr> wrote:

> It could be nice to translate it in English, at least to have a
>>>  larger base of readers, and adapt the examples from Caml Light to
>>>  Objective Caml (I don't know how much the syntaxes differ though)
>>>
>>
>> The syntax is very close for the subset of Caml used in the book.
>>
>
> Right.  Parts of the standard library changed, though.
>
>  However, judging from the lack of availability of this book even in
>> French, there might an issue in the agreement between the authors
>> (Leroy & Weis) and the publisher. I'm suspecting the authors are
>> unable to re-publish the book elsewhere.
>>
>
> The publisher (Dunod) holds all rights except for an English
> translation (Pierre Weis and I reserved those rights).  There is a
> procedure to ask the publisher to relinquish its rights if it decides
> not to print the book again, but that procedure can take up to 1 year (!).
>
> All in all, I'm not sure it's worth the effort to resurrect this old
> text, but if a group of motivated volunteers arise, let's discuss it
> privately.
>
> - Xavier Leroy
>

I think it would be a better effort to start a new work, even if harder.
OCaml's has known some evolutions, there are many key projects (Extlib,
Core, Batteries, ...) so it would be nice to throw most of today's OCaml in
an entirely new book. Moreover, there wouldn't be any problem with the
publisher of LLC.

But for such a project there would be the need for a great team of very
motivated people.

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Re: Re : [Caml-list] questions

[Kuba Ober]

> Isn't the book written in French? (I mean "Le langage Caml"...).
> It could be nice to translate it in English, at least to have a  
> larger base of readers, and adapt the examples from Caml Light to  
> Objective Caml (I don't know how much the syntaxes differ though)

It's perhaps a good way to lean French -- reading about something that
interests you. One can easily get amazed as to how many french words
or stems found their way into English :)

Cheers, Kuba

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Xavier Leroy]

> There must be some reason why the manual and other materials on the
> official site are of such poor quality. I've thought a bit about it, and
> the only reason I see is that the authors do not have a feel for what it
> takes to learn/understand/use that language. They obviously know it all
> through, but that's still far removed from being able to explain it to
> someone else. I don't know, of course, how it is that one understands
> something "well" yet is not able to explain it to somebody else. To me,
> that's very fragile knowledge.

Because we are autistic morons who lack your rock-solid knowledge, if
I properly catch your (rather insulting) drift?

At the very least, you're confusing "to be able" with "to intend to".
The "tutorial" part of the OCaml reference manual was a quick job
targeted at readers who already know functional programming and just
want a quick overview of what's standard and what's different in
OCaml.  Maybe that shouldn't be titled "tutorial" at all.

Teaching functional programming in OCaml to beginners is a rather
different job, for which they are plenty of good books already.  Most
of them happen to be in French for various reasons: O'Reilly's refusal
to publish the English translation of the Chailloux-Manoury-Pagano
book; the Hickey-Rentsch controversy, etc.  But, yes, some talented
teachers invested huge amounts of time in writing good intro to Caml
programming books.  Don't brush their efforts aside.

One last word to you, that Xah Lee troll, and anyone else on this
list: if you're not happy with the existing material, write something
better.  Everyone will thank you and you'll get to better appreciate
the difficulty of the task.

- Xavier Leroy

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[FALCON Gilles RD-RESA-LAN]

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Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Mihamina Rakotomandimby (R12y)]

FALCON Gilles RD-RESA-LAN wrote:
> I totally agree that it would be pleasant to have more documentation on 
> Ocaml, especially if you don't have ocaml lesson.

Yes and No.
The problem can be felt in PHP, where you see "anyone" witing "anything".
So, yes, there should be more documents on Ocaml, but the problem is: Only
inexperienced users have time to write down some "learning notes".
The real Gurus are all overbooked...

It's also my wish to see some documentation, but on the other hand, I dont
want it to fall into PHP fashion. Great dilemma...

-- 
                              Chef de projet chez Vectoris
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Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Kuba Ober]

On Apr 1, 2009, at 8:59 AM, Mihamina Rakotomandimby (R12y) wrote:

> FALCON Gilles RD-RESA-LAN wrote:
>> I totally agree that it would be pleasant to have more  
>> documentation on Ocaml, especially if you don't have ocaml lesson.
>
> Yes and No.
> The problem can be felt in PHP, where you see "anyone" witing  
> "anything".
> So, yes, there should be more documents on Ocaml, but the problem  
> is: Only
> inexperienced users have time to write down some "learning notes".
> The real Gurus are all overbooked...
>
> It's also my wish to see some documentation, but on the other hand,  
> I dont
> want it to fall into PHP fashion. Great dilemma...

I generally agree, although the guru term is perhaps overused. I  
figure people do
what they find enjoyable -- if someone who's very good at OCaml simply  
doesn't
enjoy explaining it in the form of a manual or whatnot, there's no  
helping that, and
it's surely understandable!

Cheers, Kuba

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Xavier Leroy]

> I saw Xavier Leroy teach caml at the CNAM in france, and he know how
> to teach.

Just for the record: I never lectured at CNAM, but probably you're
thinking of Pierre Weis, who taught a great "programming in Caml"
course there for several year.  That course was the main starting
point for our book "Le langage Caml".

Regards,

- Xavier Leroy

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Till Varoquaux]

Well his praise still applies: I did take a course in which Xavier
Leroy taught and it was crystal clear. I was also very impressed by
Didier Remy who came only once.
It also helps that the core O'caml is based on ml which uses a very
clear and regular semantic.

Till

On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 9:13 AM, Xavier Leroy <Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr> wrote:
>> I saw Xavier Leroy teach caml at the CNAM in france, and he know how
>> to teach.
>
> Just for the record: I never lectured at CNAM, but probably you're
> thinking of Pierre Weis, who taught a great "programming in Caml"
> course there for several year.  That course was the main starting
> point for our book "Le langage Caml".
>
> Regards,
>
> - Xavier Leroy
>
> _______________________________________________
> Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management:
> http://yquem.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/caml-list
> Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Kuba Ober]

> Hi,
>
> When M. Ober say the official material is of poor quality. i am  
> French and really surprise.
> I saw Xavier Leroy teach caml at the CNAM in france, and he know how  
> to teach.
> The official document is not an ocaml curse, that's right. (The  
> inria is not pay for that )

I have given recently one example of how the information about a  
simple topic -- lists -- is
rather arbitrarily split up and distributed across different portions  
of the manual. It seems
that same could be said of almost any other randomly chosen basic  
topic (arrays, types, pattern
matching, etc). I don't think that's how you write good manuals, but  
that's merely my opinion, and
the only way I can explain it better is to give examples of what I  
consider good manuals, which I did
in the post I mentioned.

> I totally agree that it would be pleasant to have more documentation  
> on Ocaml, especially if you don't have ocaml lesson.

Having or not having OCaml lessons is pretty much irrelevant here.  
Your assumption here is, perhaps,
that you remember everything you are taught. When you're an occasional  
user, like I am, I constantly
forget, and that amplifies any shortcomings in the manual, as I have  
to deal with them repeatedly.
Of course I then write down some notes, and look there first, but this  
does not affect the manual.
There are many similar ways things can be done in ML-like languages.  
Understanding of the
underlying methodology is one thing, but OCaml is a concrete  
implementation and if I forget a way
some particular thing is done, it doesn't help much that I have  
general knowledge of that thing. I still
must look it up :)

> The reader are a little like you M. Ober, they like good quality and  
> when a book is not as good as they like, they have the same reaction  
> as you.
> I am disappointed because it is not the better encouragement.   
> Different views and usages of the language seems to me better than  
> too few.

Encouragement to whom? I'm trying to discuss facts, if that's so  
bothersome then I can't really help it.
My motive is not to offend anyone nor to diminish the excellent work  
otherwise done by the OCaml team.
I'm trying to understand why the manual is so bad -- that's all. I  
know the realities of life, and that
sometimes things cannot be done perfectly even if one so wishes -- I  
went down that road many times.
That's just how it is, I know. What I didn't expect is the religious  
fervor of the replies -- it's an interesting
thing to observe and learn about!

Cheers, Kuba

Re: Re: [Caml-list] questions

[xahlee]

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Hi Xavier Leroy,

On Mar 31, 2009 9:31am, Xavier Leroy <Xavier.Leroy@inria.fr> wrote:
> One last word to you, that Xah Lee troll, and anyone else on this
> list: if you're not happy with the existing material, write something
> better. Everyone will thank you and you'll get to better appreciate
> the difficulty of the task.

although there are several good tutorials, but i think it is important that  
the bundled official tutorial should be one that is good. By “good” here, i  
mean, it gives a simple overview of the syntax, and a simple overview, such  
as how to do arithmetic, basic types, if then else, true false issues, a  
couple example of most used data types such as list and n-tuple and  
records, how to define a function, how to call a library.

Jon's, and Scott's tutorial are both in this format and i think is very  
suitable:

• Ocaml for Scientists, by Jon Harrop, chapter 1 free:
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_for_scientists/chapter1.html

• “Introduction to Caml” by Scott Smith of Johns Hopkins U. A lecture note.
http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~scott/pl/lectures/caml-intro.html

I only started learning OCaml, but my current notes at:
http://xahlee.org/ocaml/ocaml_basics.html

is also in this format. I don't know if Jon'd be willing to lend his  
chapter 1 to be the official bundled tutorial. (would you Jon?) My guess is  
that Scott would easily offer his too. (No implication that anyone should  
offer this, of course.)

If any official ocaml people wishes, feel free to start with mine as the  
bundled tutorial. I'm sure with minor editing by you experts, it would be  
very suitable.

I'm often wrong. (^_^); But i think a simple, example based, very brief,  
tutorial, using concrete code examples, such as the above ones, with a  
slight emphasize on syntax (so first timers gets a sense of what exactly to  
type), would be a great first introduction. It'd helpful to imperative  
programers as well as functional programers experienced with other  
functional langs. If this is bundled and sanctioned with the official  
manual, it'd open up ocaml to many people who otherwise may not have had  
time to search for the right tutorial. (i hope)

Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄

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Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Florian Hars]

Xavier Leroy schrieb:
> Maybe that shouldn't be titled "tutorial" at all.

The manual has been a known PR disaster for ages.

http://caml.inria.fr/pub/ml-archives/caml-list/2002/10/72ebe64a56c256607772b32ceb58197d.en.html

- Florian.

Re: [Caml-list] questions

[Jon Harrop]

On Tuesday 31 March 2009 14:37:05 Kuba Ober wrote:
> There must be some reason why the manual and other materials on the
> official site are of such poor quality.

FWIW, I think the OCaml manual is superb and under-appreciated.

> Jon's
> book, and Marcelo DiPierro's web2py book. Both are very good books
> because the authors have a feel for what it takes to understand what
> they talk about. Yet both miss out on some newer features of OCaml and
> web2py, respectively -- features that would be best explained by the
> very same authors!

My work is driven by profit, of course, and I believe it is substantially more 
profitable to publish new books on related fringe topics where there is 
little or no competition (e.g. F#, Scala, Clojure) rather than write a second 
edition of an existing book like OCaml for Scientists.

I am currently writing another F# book but only because we do not publish one 
yet. After that, I'll probably turn to another language but that may very 
well be HLVM if I can develop it quickly enough...

-- 
Dr Jon Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/?e

questions

[Igor Ozerov]

Hello!
I cannot compile ocaml on my Linux.
I am starting to learn this OS.
Cuold you help me to compile?
Processor: Intell Core Dure (32 bits)
linux: ALT Linux
Thanks!
I am doing it during several days... but no results yet.

-- 
ИО

questions

[Nickolay B. Semyonov]

I have few questions:

1) Does anybody update Emacs-scripts in distribution of Ocaml to support
Emacs 20.* ?

2) Is there any ocaml interface to OpenGL libraries?

3) Is there any database support for Ocaml? SQL-interface or smth like it.


Nickolay

Re: questions

[Jacques GARRIGUE]

From: "Nickolay B. Semyonov" <snob@snob.spb.ru>

> I have few questions:
> 
> 1) Does anybody update Emacs-scripts in distribution of Ocaml to support
> Emacs 20.* ?

I do. If you have any problems you should send me a bug report, and I
will see what I can do.
The emacs scripts in the ocaml distribution should work with Emacs 20,
but the indentation code was not updated in ocaml-2.00. You should get
ocaml-mode-2.00.tar.gz from either http://pauillac.inria.fr/olabl/ or
http://wwwfun.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp/soft/olabl/.

> 2) Is there any ocaml interface to OpenGL libraries?

Not for ocaml, but for olabl which is an extension of ocaml.
Ocaml's type system is too restrictive to provide such an interface in
a type safe way.
You can get more information from
	http://wwwfun.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp/soft/olabl/

> 3) Is there any database support for Ocaml? SQL-interface or smth like it.

This is lower level but the ocaml distribution contains both a Dbm and
a Berkeley DB interface. I don't know about any SQL interface.

Regards,

	Jacques
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacques Garrigue      Kyoto University     garrigue at kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp
		<A HREF=http://wwwfun.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~garrigue/>JG</A>

Re: Questions

[Francois Rouaix]

> 2. Ou en est le portage de tkemacs pour ocamltk ? 

Je repete ma reponse du 6 fevrier 1998.

Il n'y a rien de prevu pour ces widgets (ni pour les autres diverses
extensions qu'ont peut trouver de part le monde).
Dans la plupart des cas, les extensions peuvent etre remontee en ocamltk
en utilisant judicieusement le tkcompiler, qui genere des "stubs" a partir
d'un fichier de description. Il peut etre necessaire de completer/corriger
a la main.
Pour un exemple, voir le repertoire blt de la recente distribution 
de ocamltk41.

--f