Re: [Caml-list] The new OCaml book (Objective Caml Programming Language by Tim Rentsch)

[Jason Hickey <jasonh@gmail.com>]

To the OCaml community,

I apologize for my silence.  I have very strong feelings for this
community.  I have benefited quite profoundly from Caml (starting when
I first wrote Metaprl in caml-light), and I wish to continue my role
as an advocate, supporter, and instructor.  Before I can say anything,
I think it is important to wait until I have seen a copy of the text.
Amazon promises me it will arrive by Friday, so we shall see.

For now, let me just mention that there is considerable documentation
available online if one wishes to assess the history/pedigree of the
text.  The course sites point to various versions of the book, usually
under the "Resources" section for Caltech CS134b.  Here is an early
version of the text I used in 2002.

   http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~jyh/classes/cs134/cs134b/2002/book.pdf

Initially I wrote the book in Metaprl, then I later switched to LaTeX,
so there are a couple of separate subversion repositories (use "svn ls
<link>" and similar commands).

December 2000 -- April 2006:
   http://svn.metaprl.org/svnroot/mojave/metaprl/theories/ocaml_doc@9228
April 2006 -- Jan 2007:
   http://svn.metaprl.org/svnroot/papers/trunk/ocaml_book

subversion stats:
   jyh: 267 revisions, lines added/removed: +293342, -216176
   nogin: 29 revisions, lines: +16441, -12339
   txr: 36 revisions, lines: +13958, -4536
(nogin is Aleksey Nogin, a post-doc and good friend; his changes were technical)

In Jan 2007, I had the dispute with Mr. Rentsch where I thought his
claims were overly grandiose, and I rolled back the text to 2003 and
started over.

   http://svn.metaprl.org/svnroot/papers/trunk/ocaml_book

The current text is submitted and ready for publication since Jan
2008, but it has been delayed.  Mr. Rentsch made a formal request to
CUP to review the manuscript.  We sent him a copy in Jan 2008; he
acknowledged receipt, but the status has been in limbo while we await
his review.  I now believe that this may have been a delaying
tactic...

It is a bit ironic that Mr. Rentsch did not extend me the same
courtesy, so that now I must be silent until Amazon fulfills my order!
 It is difficult to be silent, I feel a great deal of fear, but it
cannot yet be grounded.  We shall see.

Jason