From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mail4-relais-sop.national.inria.fr (mail4-relais-sop.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.105]) by walapai.inria.fr (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id pB6FP9sM007143 for ; Tue, 6 Dec 2011 16:25:16 +0100 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AlgBAHoz3k7RVdW2kGdsb2JhbABDFoRvlSeFCYMOAYgQCCIBAQEBCQkNBxQEIYFyAQEBAQIBEgIPHQEbEgwDAQsGAwILDQ0dAgIhAQERAQUBChIGEwkJAgIIBIdlCJgOCoscSIJrhSs9iHECBQqDaIYqgRYEgluSC4pmAoMEPYJKgS4 X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.71,306,1320620400"; d="scan'208";a="122258882" Received: from mail-yx0-f182.google.com ([209.85.213.182]) by mail4-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr with ESMTP/TLS/RC4-SHA; 06 Dec 2011 16:25:15 +0100 Received: by mail-yx0-f182.google.com with SMTP id m2so4275217yen.27 for ; Tue, 06 Dec 2011 07:25:15 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id:subject:to :content-type; bh=Ipy3q7/vjy0qZILmOhfjPC/JovHbajFD2O8G1gZqkAk=; b=vyv0dkFnGJW8evCIYDRAUb68w14lcFJ9RwO5Vgtt9hTz/NpOjLagr0nT+d/Y4PXXUJ gjAZ7RIwIsuwL3YFCU6LuUECzhM5tpJJHmCJnpA1iEer1g5ZuIo/Ce91kL8KN12mxqFP vlc0rt9A5G0DRZuefT6TDyfADWuf591PqHAE0= Received: by 10.236.181.202 with SMTP id l50mr20271200yhm.61.1323185115237; Tue, 06 Dec 2011 07:25:15 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.236.110.14 with HTTP; Tue, 6 Dec 2011 07:24:54 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: References: <1B0D83BD-1902-4F7C-B3FB-B759122D6AB9@googlemail.com> <7b8a9e9bba71a1be49e46deb008bcb6e.squirrel@gps.dynxs.de> From: Pierre-Alexandre Voye Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2011 16:24:54 +0100 Message-ID: To: caml-list Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=20cf305639afc40f9a04b36e0adc Subject: Re: [Caml-list] OCaml maintenance status / community fork --20cf305639afc40f9a04b36e0adc Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 And one of the great sub-topic is how to avoid that students *hate* FP. When i say to other programmers i code in ocaml, they answer they absolutely hate this language they have to learn at university. I met this "effect" more than 15 times ! There's a great problem of old boring professors who teach FP with uninteresting problems (and lectures). So the litlle part of programmers who faces FP-language simply forget how to think in FP way.. 2011/12/6 Yitzhak Mandelbaum > Gerd, > > I think this is a great topic, but perhaps we could change the title to > keep it separate from the main discussion? > > (e.g. FP-language education) > > Yitzhak > > On Dec 6, 2011, at 10:10 AM, Gerd Stolpmann wrote: > > > > >> Hi all, > >> > >> I will not jump in the "how to save OCaml from dying because nothing > >> moves" discussion. But just in the "nothing moves" discussion. > >> > >> On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 2:52 PM, ivan chollet > >> wrote: > >>> The current status of OCaml is more than stable enough to serve its > >>> goals, > >>> which are to teach computer science to french undergrads and provide a > >>> playground for computer languages researchers. > >> > >> First, french undergrads sadly often still use camllight... Which is > >> not the case for example of Harvard undergrad > >> (http://www.seas.harvard.edu/courses/cs51/lectures.html) and some > >> UPenn one (http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cis341/). But you are right that > >> I can't find any well known university out of France using OCaml to > >> teach computer science... > > > > Well, if you ask whether _any_ FP language is taught, the results won't > be > > much better. > > > > I'm currently doing consulting for a web company (in Germany) - around 60 > > developers, many fresh from the University. There are only three guys > > knowing FP languages at all - one Scala, one Erlang, and one R. It's a > > complete failure of the academic education. > > > > IMHO it does not matter which FP language you are taught in. The point is > > that the students understand the ideas, and that they recognize them as > > relevant. These web developers here in the company have no clue that they > > actually developing a big continuation-style FP program. > > > > Gerd > > > > > >> > >> And for the "computer languages researchers" part, I'll refer you to > >> http://caml.inria.fr/consortium/ > >> > >>> A fork could possibly get traction from the community, but you would > >>> have to > >>> provide interesting features that the real OCaml does not provide. Bug > >>> fixes > >>> won't be enough. > >> > >> So now, here is my real problem. What are those famous so wanted > >> feature that this fork will provide? And what makes you (a plural you) > >> think that ocaml is such a slowly moving and evolving language? > >> According to the caml web site, in the past two years, we've seen > >> native dynlink, polymorphic recursion and first class module making > >> there way into the language. According to what can be found on the > >> trunk of the ocaml svn, the next release will have GADTs. And the > >> compiler have also been modified to incorporate things like a nice > >> multiprecision library (http://forge.ocamlcore.org/projects/zarith/) > >> and some backends have been added. > >> > >> Except maybe haskell and Scala, can you really name me a programming > >> language that in fact evolves that quickly, and basically without ever > >> breaking backward compatibility? I really don't think that any of > >> python, perl, java, C, C++ would really win. But I might be wrong. > >> > >> So before saying we need to fork the OCaml compiler to add "much > >> needed patches", it would be nice to minimally agree on witch patches > >> are so much needed. Because if "the community" can't agree on this, I > >> doubt the future of this potential fork will be so bright. > >> > >> My 2c. > >> > >> -- > >> Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management and archives: > >> https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/caml-list > >> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners > >> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs > >> > >> > >> > > > > > > -- > > Gerd Stolpmann, Darmstadt, Germany gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de > > Creator of GODI and camlcity.org. > > Contact details: http://www.camlcity.org/contact.html > > Company homepage: http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de > > *** Searching for new projects! Need consulting for system > > *** programming in Ocaml? Gerd Stolpmann can help you. > > > > > > > > -- > > Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management and archives: > > https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/caml-list > > Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners > > Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs > > > > ----------------------------- > Yitzhak Mandelbaum > > > > > > -- > Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management and archives: > https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/caml-list > Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners > Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs > > -- --------------------- https://twitter.com/#!/ontologiae/ http://linuxfr.org/users/montaigne --20cf305639afc40f9a04b36e0adc Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable And one of the great sub-topic is how to avoid that students *hate* FP. Whe= n i say to other programmers i code in ocaml, they answer they absolutely h= ate this language they have to learn at university. I met this "effect= " more than 15 times !
There's a great problem of old boring professors who teach FP with unin= teresting problems (and lectures).
So the litlle part of programmers who= faces FP-language simply forget how to think in FP way..

2011/12/6 Yitzhak Mandelbaum <yitzhakm@cs.princeton.edu>
Gerd,

I think this is a great topic, but perhaps we could change the title to kee= p it separate from the main discussion?

(e.g. FP-language education)

Yitzhak

On Dec 6, 2011, at 10:10 AM, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:

>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I will not jump in the "how to save OCaml from dying because = nothing
>> moves" discussion. But just in the "nothing moves" = discussion.
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 2:52 PM, ivan chollet <ivan.chollet@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> The current status of OCaml is more than stable enough to serv= e its
>>> goals,
>>> which are to teach computer science to french undergrads and p= rovide a
>>> playground for computer languages researchers.
>>
>> First, french undergrads sadly often still use camllight... Which = is
>> not the case for example of Harvard undergrad
>> (http://www.seas.harvard.edu/courses/cs51/lectures.html<= /a>) and some
>> UPenn one (http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cis341/). But you are right that=
>> I can't find any well known university out of France using OCa= ml to
>> teach computer science...
>
> Well, if you ask whether _any_ FP language is taught, the results won&= #39;t be
> much better.
>
> I'm currently doing consulting for a web company (in Germany) - ar= ound 60
> developers, many fresh from the University. There are only three guys<= br> > knowing FP languages at all - one Scala, one Erlang, and one R. It'= ;s a
> complete failure of the academic education.
>
> IMHO it does not matter which FP language you are taught in. The point= is
> that the students understand the ideas, and that they recognize them a= s
> relevant. These web developers here in the company have no clue that t= hey
> actually developing a big continuation-style FP program.
>
> Gerd
>
>
>>
>> And for the "computer languages researchers" part, I'= ;ll refer you to
>> htt= p://caml.inria.fr/consortium/
>>
>>> A fork could possibly get traction from the community, but you= would
>>> have to
>>> provide interesting features that the real OCaml does not prov= ide. Bug
>>> fixes
>>> won't be enough.
>>
>> So now, here is my real problem. What are those famous so wanted >> feature that this fork will provide? And what makes you (a plural = you)
>> think that ocaml is such a slowly moving and evolving language?
>> According to the caml web site, in the past two years, we've s= een
>> native dynlink, polymorphic recursion and first class module makin= g
>> there way into the language. According to what can be found on the=
>> trunk of the ocaml svn, the next release will have GADTs. And the<= br> >> compiler have also been modified to incorporate things like a nice=
>> multiprecision library (http://forge.ocamlcore.org/projects/zarith/= )
>> and some backends have been added.
>>
>> Except maybe haskell and Scala, can you really name me a programmi= ng
>> language that in fact evolves that quickly, and basically without = ever
>> breaking backward compatibility? I really don't think that any= of
>> python, perl, java, C, C++ would really win. But I might be wrong.=
>>
>> So before saying we need to fork the OCaml compiler to add "m= uch
>> needed patches", it would be nice to minimally agree on witch= patches
>> are so much needed. Because if "the community" can't= agree on this, I
>> doubt the future of this potential fork will be so bright.
>>
>> My 2c.
>>
>> --
>> Caml-list mailing list. =C2=A0Subscription management and archives= :
>> https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/caml-list
>> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginner= s
>> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Gerd Stolpmann, Darmstadt, Germany =C2=A0 =C2=A0gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de
> Creator of GODI and = camlcity.org.
> Contact details: =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0http://www.camlcity.org/contact.ht= ml
> Company homepage: =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de
> *** Searching for new projects! Need consulting for system
> *** programming in Ocaml? Gerd Stolpmann can help you.
>
>
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list. =C2=A0Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/caml-list
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>

-----------------------------
Yitzhak Mandelbaum





--
Caml-list mailing list. =C2=A0Subscription management and archives:
https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/caml-list
Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs




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