I'm teaching (basic) functional programming and (simple) compilation in ocaml (to master students). Currently, I ask the system administrators to install a basic ocaml package. I'm thinking on switching to opam to make it easier for students to experiment various libraries.

Does anyone has used opam for labs with student? I would be glad to hear any report on this mainly on the following points:

- Is opam really usable when you keep changing of machine?

- Having a .opam for all student accounts seem interesting so that they can freely experiment without interfering with others but has the cost of duplicating lot of common files. Any thoughts?

- What is the usual size of an .opam directory? Mine is 1G but I don't know if it's usual.

- What kind of ocaml libs do you introduce to the students? I was thinking of utop, ounit, core / batteries, menhir.

Thanks in advance

Fabien

Fabien DAGNAT
Maître de conférences au département informatique
Responsable de la filière Systèmes Logiciels et Réseaux
Tél. : (0 | 33) 2 29 00 14 09

Technopôle Brest-Iroise, CS 83818
29238 Brest Cedex 3, France

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