Re: [Caml-list] teaching OCaml

[Yaron Minsky <yminsky@janestreet.com>]

For those following this thread because they're teaching with OCaml,
I really do recommend subscribing to teaching@ocaml.org.  We're
already starting to discuss better support in OPAM for teaching and
what's needed there, and it would be great to have everyone who has a
stake in this looped into that conversation.

Here's the link:

   http://lists.ocaml.org/listinfo/teaching

y

On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 6:37 AM, Kenichi Asai <asai@is.ocha.ac.jp> wrote:
> Hi Bob,
>
> I have been using OCaml as a teaching language for quite a while.
>
>> 1. Error messages: It's difficult to give good type errors for ML but I was
>> hoping that the state-of-the-art of type error reporting had improved. When my
>> students receive a type error, they are utterly mystified,
>
> Not directly addressing the error messages, but this spring, I used
> our type debugger for OCaml in the introductory course.  By answering
> questions, it leads you to the source of the type error, with better
> error messages.  With proper instruction, I found that students
> actually learn how OCaml types work from the interaction with the type
> debugger.  It also introduces a few language levels which are good for
> novices.
>
> http://pllab.is.ocha.ac.jp/~asai/TypeDebugger/
>
> (English error messages are not polished compared to Japanese error
> messages.  Your feedback welcome.)
>
>> 2. GUIs: several of my problem sets work with simple graphics (e.g., rendering
>> tessellations) or animations (e.g., a maze walk or a simplified form of
>> tetris, or the game "Flow"). We have been hobbling along with the Graphics and
>> Labltk modules for this but it has been more pain than my students ought to
>> know. We also have some problem sets that work with audio so I would like
>> support for that.
>
> One of my students is porting the universe teachpack of Racket into
> OCaml, which enables easy game programming similarly to Racket.
> I am now encouraging her to make the library public...
>
> Sincerely,
>
> --
> Kenichi Asai
>
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