Re: [Caml-list] use of ";;" when teaching Ocaml

[Ivan Gotovchits <ivg@ieee.org>]

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On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 9:27 AM, Alan Schmitt <
alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Thanks to everyone for your answers, this has given me much food for
> thought.
>
> On 2015-06-23 01:41, Philippe Wang <mail@philippewang.info> writes:
>
> > In my opinion, it's a lot more relevant to use a very limited and very
> > simple subset of OCaml when teaching to beginners. And this subset
> > does not involve expressions at top-level because it's not worth the
> > trouble.
>
> I like this approach because it amounts to saying "one always starts
> a phrase with 'let' or 'type'" (and later in the year there can be
> 'open', 'module', 'include'). I sure can live without top-level
> expressions.
>
> On the other hand, I also like the idea of terminating phrases, simply
> because explaining when it terminates is not trivial otherwise, as
> a 'let' may not be the beginning of a phrase.
>
> > Also, using the interactive top-level loop is, in my opinion, not good
> > for beginners. It should only be presented to those who already
> > understand very well the "core" of OCaml. The most frequent issue with
> > the top-level loop is that it gets in the way of the notion of
> > compiling a program, and it might give the false impression that OCaml
> > can be interpreted.
>
> I am curious about this. My goal is to teach the language, and I find
> that a REPL backed with a file works great to do this (using tuareg or
> ocaml-top). What do you use to make sure students have a fast
> compile/debug cycle?
>

You should take a look into ocaml-top [1]. It is a toplevel that doesn't
require `;;` at all.





>
> Thanks again,
>
> Alan
>
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