[Caml-list] new user - old questions

[Caml-list] new user - old questions

[Gour]

Hello!

Some years ago I was looking for adequate language for one open-source
project to be done in free time and although I took a look at OCaml,
somehow, I didn't like syntax and went playing with Haskell.

Never really grokked monads and had feeling that despite nice syntax,
some things are more complicated for pragmatic programming than they
should be.

I managed to scare enough few potential contributors and had to
postpone the project for 'sometime in the future'.

Later, I was exploring D (v2), but it seems that the language is never
finished, code breaks often from one version to another, poor GUI
bindings support etc.

Shortly thought about using Python+Cython, but dynamic language never
sounded right for my project.

In utter despair I went to evaluate Ada which seems as nice (a bit
verbose) language, mature, actively developed, good ecosystem, but
somehow I was missing lack of FP features.

For a short time I took a look at Nimrod - nice & interesting language,
but very small community and lack of FP features.

Then, I do not know exactly how, I got inspired to take a look at OCaml
and in a very short time, I could see that there is a language with
quite OK syntax, actively developed, not small community enabling me to
use FP language with thinking too much about monads and category theory
in order to do practical things.

The remaining thing is to get hints how to proceed, iow.:

a) Real World Ocaml is going to be released in Oct 2013, so I wonder is
there any online/paperback book you can recommend? I'm on Debian wheezy
which means no 4.0 yet, but probably we'll try to take advantage of new
features in due course of time

b) it looks that Emacs is the best-supported editor for OCaml. How is
support in Vim/Geany? What do you recommend?

Now I wonder about Typerex which looks cool, but I was told on #ocaml
that it's "dead project" and was recommended to use tuareg mode?

That's actually everything or most important...editor & good book to
start with?


Sincerely,
Gour


-- 
Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, 
O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion — 
at that time I descend Myself.

http://www.atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: 52B5C810

Re: [Caml-list] new user - old questions

[Malcolm Matalka]

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Check ocaml.org, there are tutorials, references, and book suggestions. I
bootstrapped myself with a tutorial, then read through language spec. Ocaml
is thankfully not a complicated language to get productive with.

/M
 On Dec 24, 2012 1:30 PM, "Gour" <gour@atmarama.net> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> Some years ago I was looking for adequate language for one open-source
> project to be done in free time and although I took a look at OCaml,
> somehow, I didn't like syntax and went playing with Haskell.
>
> Never really grokked monads and had feeling that despite nice syntax,
> some things are more complicated for pragmatic programming than they
> should be.
>
> I managed to scare enough few potential contributors and had to
> postpone the project for 'sometime in the future'.
>
> Later, I was exploring D (v2), but it seems that the language is never
> finished, code breaks often from one version to another, poor GUI
> bindings support etc.
>
> Shortly thought about using Python+Cython, but dynamic language never
> sounded right for my project.
>
> In utter despair I went to evaluate Ada which seems as nice (a bit
> verbose) language, mature, actively developed, good ecosystem, but
> somehow I was missing lack of FP features.
>
> For a short time I took a look at Nimrod - nice & interesting language,
> but very small community and lack of FP features.
>
> Then, I do not know exactly how, I got inspired to take a look at OCaml
> and in a very short time, I could see that there is a language with
> quite OK syntax, actively developed, not small community enabling me to
> use FP language with thinking too much about monads and category theory
> in order to do practical things.
>
> The remaining thing is to get hints how to proceed, iow.:
>
> a) Real World Ocaml is going to be released in Oct 2013, so I wonder is
> there any online/paperback book you can recommend? I'm on Debian wheezy
> which means no 4.0 yet, but probably we'll try to take advantage of new
> features in due course of time
>
> b) it looks that Emacs is the best-supported editor for OCaml. How is
> support in Vim/Geany? What do you recommend?
>
> Now I wonder about Typerex which looks cool, but I was told on #ocaml
> that it's "dead project" and was recommended to use tuareg mode?
>
> That's actually everything or most important...editor & good book to
> start with?
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Gour
>
>
> --
> Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice,
> O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion —
> at that time I descend Myself.
>
> http://www.atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: 52B5C810
>
>
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3696 bytes --]

[Caml-list] Re: new user - old questions

[Gour]

On Mon, 24 Dec 2012 13:38:56 +0100
Malcolm Matalka <mmatalka@gmail.com> wrote:

> Check ocaml.org, there are tutorials, references, and book
> suggestions. I bootstrapped myself with a tutorial, then read through
> language spec. Ocaml is thankfully not a complicated language to get
> productive with.

OK. I saw references at the site, but looking for some "1st hand
experience(s)".


Sincerely,
Gour


-- 
The working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher 
than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; 
and he [the soul] is even higher than the intelligence.

http://www.atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: 52B5C810

Re: [Caml-list] new user - old questions

[Siraaj Khandkar]

+1 for OCaml.org! It is an excellent organization of available OCaml resources
that I wish existed when I started checking-out OCaml.


SHORT VERSION:

Editor:
    Vim with OMlet plugin

Books:
    1) Jason Hickey's "Introduction to Objective Caml"
    2) The manual: http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/

Syntax:
    I actually preferred OCaml's syntax over Haskell's from the start (meaning
    that I don't just prefer OCaml because of familiarity). It is highly
    subjective and I don't care to argue about it, but, to me it just feels
    simpler, more uniform and (gasp) clean. :) Though honestly, cleanliness
    primarily comes down to the author's deliberate effort.


LONG VERSION:

I started by reading/skimming beginning chapters of Jason Hickey's book, and
then just committing to writing in OCaml, every small utility that I had a need
for while looking things up in the manual and stdlib reference. So lots of head
banging and RTFMing, the best way, IMHO :)

That is for "how to do it" aspect of things, but another, IMHO most
enlightening, aspect is "how to think" in OCaml (or ML in general), and for
that I highly recommend reading Jane Street's blog, with the most important
entry point (IMHO, of course) being the Effective ML talk:
https://ocaml.janestreet.com/?q=node/82

I'm yet to switch to their standard library (though I plan to), but just about
everything I've read from these guys so far, have been most moving to me as a
programmer in general, with OCaml just being an excellent facilitator of such
thinking.

Another thing I have an opinion on is the build system. The "right" way to
compile and link your programs have been quite confusing to me as a beginner. I
was told to "just use OASIS", and I remember wasting quite a lot of time trying
to grok everything it does without understanding OCaml first. I finally (and
rightfully) decided to just write Makefiles with "manual" build steps as is
described in the manual, which helped me to understand how things are actually
put together.

I just switched to ocamlbuild, and can now fully appreciate what it has to
offer!  I plan to go to OASIS eventually, but haven't quite developed an
understanding of what it would gain me (plus I noticed some behaviors that rub
me the wrong way).  Seems like distributing libraries is it, but I'm not quite
there yet, so time will tell.

For managing external libraries, my initial savior was GODI - I had some issues
with packages breaking, but I don't know what I would've done without it - it
is awesome!  However, as of a couple of months ago, there's now a much improved
package manager for OCaml - OPAM. I now use OPAM exclusively.

As for editors, I'm a happy Vim user, with OMlet plugin:
http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/~dbaelde/productions/omlet.html

So, my subjective and personally-inspired roadmap is such:

* Get inspired by Effective ML
* Get a feel for the language from Jason Hickey's book
* Use OPAM
* Write Makefiles with manual steps (see the official manual)
* Hack, hack, hack!
* Watch, and this time understand, Effective ML again
* Switch to ocamlbuild
* Go forth and conquer! :)


P.S. For the experienced Camlers, I am not claiming to be "right" in anything I
said, it is simply a description of my perception as a new comer to the
language.



On Dec 24, 2012, at 7:38 AM, Malcolm Matalka <mmatalka@gmail.com> wrote:

> Check ocaml.org, there are tutorials, references, and book suggestions. I
> bootstrapped myself with a tutorial, then read through language spec. Ocaml
> is thankfully not a complicated language to get productive with.
> 
> /M
> On Dec 24, 2012 1:30 PM, "Gour" <gour@atmarama.net> wrote:
> 
>> Hello!
>> 
>> Some years ago I was looking for adequate language for one open-source
>> project to be done in free time and although I took a look at OCaml,
>> somehow, I didn't like syntax and went playing with Haskell.
>> 
>> Never really grokked monads and had feeling that despite nice syntax,
>> some things are more complicated for pragmatic programming than they
>> should be.
>> 
>> I managed to scare enough few potential contributors and had to
>> postpone the project for 'sometime in the future'.
>> 
>> Later, I was exploring D (v2), but it seems that the language is never
>> finished, code breaks often from one version to another, poor GUI
>> bindings support etc.
>> 
>> Shortly thought about using Python+Cython, but dynamic language never
>> sounded right for my project.
>> 
>> In utter despair I went to evaluate Ada which seems as nice (a bit
>> verbose) language, mature, actively developed, good ecosystem, but
>> somehow I was missing lack of FP features.
>> 
>> For a short time I took a look at Nimrod - nice & interesting language,
>> but very small community and lack of FP features.
>> 
>> Then, I do not know exactly how, I got inspired to take a look at OCaml
>> and in a very short time, I could see that there is a language with
>> quite OK syntax, actively developed, not small community enabling me to
>> use FP language with thinking too much about monads and category theory
>> in order to do practical things.
>> 
>> The remaining thing is to get hints how to proceed, iow.:
>> 
>> a) Real World Ocaml is going to be released in Oct 2013, so I wonder is
>> there any online/paperback book you can recommend? I'm on Debian wheezy
>> which means no 4.0 yet, but probably we'll try to take advantage of new
>> features in due course of time
>> 
>> b) it looks that Emacs is the best-supported editor for OCaml. How is
>> support in Vim/Geany? What do you recommend?
>> 
>> Now I wonder about Typerex which looks cool, but I was told on #ocaml
>> that it's "dead project" and was recommended to use tuareg mode?
>> 
>> That's actually everything or most important...editor & good book to
>> start with?
>> 
>> 
>> Sincerely,
>> Gour
>> 

-- 
Siraaj Khandkar
.o.
..o
ooo

[Caml-list] Re: new user - old questions

[Gour]

On Mon, 24 Dec 2012 12:59:24 -0500
Siraaj Khandkar <siraaj@khandkar.net> wrote:

> +1 for OCaml.org! It is an excellent organization of available OCaml
> resources that I wish existed when I started checking-out OCaml.

:-)

> That is for "how to do it" aspect of things, but another, IMHO most
> enlightening, aspect is "how to think" in OCaml (or ML in general),
> and for that I highly recommend reading Jane Street's blog, with the
> most important entry point (IMHO, of course) being the Effective ML
> talk: https://ocaml.janestreet.com/?q=node/82

Thanks.

> I just switched to ocamlbuild, and can now fully appreciate what it
> has to offer!  I plan to go to OASIS eventually, but haven't quite
> developed an understanding of what it would gain me (plus I noticed
> some behaviors that rub me the wrong way).  Seems like distributing
> libraries is it, but I'm not quite there yet, so time will tell.

I must say I'm happy seeing OASIS 'cause I really liked most of the
ideas behind Haskell's Cabal when playing with it.

> As for editors, I'm a happy Vim user, with OMlet plugin:
> http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/~dbaelde/productions/omlet.html

Have you tried Emacs' support for OCaml or vim is good-enough for you?

> * Get inspired by Effective ML
> * Get a feel for the language from Jason Hickey's book
> * Use OPAM
> * Write Makefiles with manual steps (see the official manual)
> * Hack, hack, hack!
> * Watch, and this time understand, Effective ML again
> * Switch to ocamlbuild
> * Go forth and conquer! :)

Thanks a lot!!


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
The humble sages, by virtue of true knowledge, see with equal 
vision a learned and gentle brāhmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog 
and a dog-eater.

http://www.atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: 52B5C810

Re: [Caml-list] new user - old questions

[Francois Berenger]

On 12/25/2012 02:59 AM, Siraaj Khandkar wrote:
> +1 for OCaml.org! It is an excellent organization of available OCaml resources
> that I wish existed when I started checking-out OCaml.
>
>
> SHORT VERSION:
>
> Editor:
>      Vim with OMlet plugin
>
> Books:
>      1) Jason Hickey's "Introduction to Objective Caml"
>      2) The manual: http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/

There is also this quite thorough book:
"Developing Applications With Objective Caml"
http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/html/index.html

I just wish the book would have some example of an Error monad.
I mean, something advanced you don't find in a lot of other languages.
This book is OK even for complete beginners, in my opinion.

> Syntax:
>      I actually preferred OCaml's syntax over Haskell's from the start (meaning
>      that I don't just prefer OCaml because of familiarity). It is highly
>      subjective and I don't care to argue about it, but, to me it just feels
>      simpler, more uniform and (gasp) clean. :) Though honestly, cleanliness
>      primarily comes down to the author's deliberate effort.
>
>
> LONG VERSION:
>
> I started by reading/skimming beginning chapters of Jason Hickey's book, and
> then just committing to writing in OCaml, every small utility that I had a need
> for while looking things up in the manual and stdlib reference. So lots of head
> banging and RTFMing, the best way, IMHO :)
>
> That is for "how to do it" aspect of things, but another, IMHO most
> enlightening, aspect is "how to think" in OCaml (or ML in general), and for
> that I highly recommend reading Jane Street's blog, with the most important
> entry point (IMHO, of course) being the Effective ML talk:
> https://ocaml.janestreet.com/?q=node/82
>
> I'm yet to switch to their standard library (though I plan to), but just about
> everything I've read from these guys so far, have been most moving to me as a
> programmer in general, with OCaml just being an excellent facilitator of such
> thinking.
>
> Another thing I have an opinion on is the build system. The "right" way to
> compile and link your programs have been quite confusing to me as a beginner. I
> was told to "just use OASIS", and I remember wasting quite a lot of time trying
> to grok everything it does without understanding OCaml first. I finally (and
> rightfully) decided to just write Makefiles with "manual" build steps as is
> described in the manual, which helped me to understand how things are actually
> put together.
>
> I just switched to ocamlbuild, and can now fully appreciate what it has to
> offer!  I plan to go to OASIS eventually, but haven't quite developed an
> understanding of what it would gain me (plus I noticed some behaviors that rub
> me the wrong way).  Seems like distributing libraries is it, but I'm not quite
> there yet, so time will tell.
>
> For managing external libraries, my initial savior was GODI - I had some issues
> with packages breaking, but I don't know what I would've done without it - it
> is awesome!  However, as of a couple of months ago, there's now a much improved
> package manager for OCaml - OPAM. I now use OPAM exclusively.
>
> As for editors, I'm a happy Vim user, with OMlet plugin:
> http://www.lix.polytechnique.fr/~dbaelde/productions/omlet.html
>
> So, my subjective and personally-inspired roadmap is such:
>
> * Get inspired by Effective ML
> * Get a feel for the language from Jason Hickey's book
> * Use OPAM
> * Write Makefiles with manual steps (see the official manual)
> * Hack, hack, hack!
> * Watch, and this time understand, Effective ML again
> * Switch to ocamlbuild
> * Go forth and conquer! :)
>
>
> P.S. For the experienced Camlers, I am not claiming to be "right" in anything I
> said, it is simply a description of my perception as a new comer to the
> language.
>
>
>
> On Dec 24, 2012, at 7:38 AM, Malcolm Matalka <mmatalka@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Check ocaml.org, there are tutorials, references, and book suggestions. I
>> bootstrapped myself with a tutorial, then read through language spec. Ocaml
>> is thankfully not a complicated language to get productive with.
>>
>> /M
>> On Dec 24, 2012 1:30 PM, "Gour" <gour@atmarama.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello!
>>>
>>> Some years ago I was looking for adequate language for one open-source
>>> project to be done in free time and although I took a look at OCaml,
>>> somehow, I didn't like syntax and went playing with Haskell.
>>>
>>> Never really grokked monads and had feeling that despite nice syntax,
>>> some things are more complicated for pragmatic programming than they
>>> should be.
>>>
>>> I managed to scare enough few potential contributors and had to
>>> postpone the project for 'sometime in the future'.
>>>
>>> Later, I was exploring D (v2), but it seems that the language is never
>>> finished, code breaks often from one version to another, poor GUI
>>> bindings support etc.
>>>
>>> Shortly thought about using Python+Cython, but dynamic language never
>>> sounded right for my project.
>>>
>>> In utter despair I went to evaluate Ada which seems as nice (a bit
>>> verbose) language, mature, actively developed, good ecosystem, but
>>> somehow I was missing lack of FP features.
>>>
>>> For a short time I took a look at Nimrod - nice & interesting language,
>>> but very small community and lack of FP features.
>>>
>>> Then, I do not know exactly how, I got inspired to take a look at OCaml
>>> and in a very short time, I could see that there is a language with
>>> quite OK syntax, actively developed, not small community enabling me to
>>> use FP language with thinking too much about monads and category theory
>>> in order to do practical things.
>>>
>>> The remaining thing is to get hints how to proceed, iow.:
>>>
>>> a) Real World Ocaml is going to be released in Oct 2013, so I wonder is
>>> there any online/paperback book you can recommend? I'm on Debian wheezy
>>> which means no 4.0 yet, but probably we'll try to take advantage of new
>>> features in due course of time
>>>
>>> b) it looks that Emacs is the best-supported editor for OCaml. How is
>>> support in Vim/Geany? What do you recommend?
>>>
>>> Now I wonder about Typerex which looks cool, but I was told on #ocaml
>>> that it's "dead project" and was recommended to use tuareg mode?
>>>
>>> That's actually everything or most important...editor & good book to
>>> start with?
>>>
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Gour
>>>
>

[Caml-list] Re: new user - old questions

[Gour]

On Tue, 25 Dec 2012 10:46:10 +0900
Francois Berenger <berenger@riken.jp> wrote:

> There is also this quite thorough book:
> "Developing Applications With Objective Caml"
> http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/html/index.html

Yeah, I saw it, but noticed nobody referenced it.

> I just wish the book would have some example of an Error monad.

Monads? Again? In OCaml? :-)

> I mean, something advanced you don't find in a lot of other languages.
> This book is OK even for complete beginners, in my opinion.

Thank you.

For now I'd like to focus on one book which would give me the most
while starting.

Sincerely,
Gour


-- 
Abandoning all attachment to the results of his activities, 
ever satisfied and independent, he performs no fruitive action, 
although engaged in all kinds of undertakings.

http://www.atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: 52B5C810

Re: [Caml-list] Re: new user - old questions

[Gabriel Scherer]

On Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 8:21 AM, Gour <gour@atmarama.net> wrote:
>> There is also this quite thorough book:
>> "Developing Applications With Objective Caml"
>> http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/html/index.html
>
> Yeah, I saw it, but noticed nobody referenced it.

The Caml mailing-list is not a social network to make friends and (+1)
other comments to confirm your agreement.

When I first read your question, I decided to answer it by pointing
you to an answer to a similar question on StackOverflow:
  http://stackoverflow.com/a/9358776/298143

I noticed that the ocaml.org page you were pointed to had much of the
same content (minus the subjective comments), and was therefore an
excellent reference. What need would there be to answer you if you are
already given a good list placed on an authoritative *and*
community-handled website? On the contrary, if people have something
to add, they would do more good submitting a patch to improve the
website rather than answering your question here and now, that will
end up lost in the mailing-list archives.

I'll be happy to answer your technical questions when you have some.
But please, a mailing list is not there to organize popularity
contests.

On Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 8:21 AM, Gour <gour@atmarama.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Dec 2012 10:46:10 +0900
> Francois Berenger <berenger@riken.jp> wrote:
>
>> There is also this quite thorough book:
>> "Developing Applications With Objective Caml"
>> http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/html/index.html
>
> Yeah, I saw it, but noticed nobody referenced it.
>
>> I just wish the book would have some example of an Error monad.
>
> Monads? Again? In OCaml? :-)
>
>> I mean, something advanced you don't find in a lot of other languages.
>> This book is OK even for complete beginners, in my opinion.
>
> Thank you.
>
> For now I'd like to focus on one book which would give me the most
> while starting.
>
> Sincerely,
> Gour
>
>
> --
> Abandoning all attachment to the results of his activities,
> ever satisfied and independent, he performs no fruitive action,
> although engaged in all kinds of undertakings.
>
> http://www.atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: 52B5C810
>
>
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs

[Caml-list] Re: new user - old questions

[Gour]

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On Tue, 25 Dec 2012 10:01:54 +0100
Gabriel Scherer <gabriel.scherer@gmail.com> wrote:

> The Caml mailing-list is not a social network to make friends and (+1)
> other comments to confirm your agreement.

I must say I do not understand your comment.

I
> When I first read your question, I decided to answer it by pointing
> you to an answer to a similar question on StackOverflow:
>   http://stackoverflow.com/a/9358776/298143

That would be better option than you comment above, imho.

> I noticed that the ocaml.org page you were pointed to had much of the
> same content (minus the subjective comments), and was therefore an
> excellent reference. What need would there be to answer you if you are
> already given a good list placed on an authoritative *and*
> community-handled website? 

I clearly wrote: "I saw references at the site, but looking for some
"1st hand experience(s)" which implies I'm aware of ocaml.org, but
looking for some opinion which book is best suited for someone starting
with the language, iow. looking for "subjective comments".

If such questions and answers do not belong here, then I must say it's
a bit strange (never had such experience on other-language's lists).

> On the contrary, if people have something to add, they would do more
> good submitting a patch to improve the website rather than answering
> your question here and now, that will end up lost in the mailing-list
> archives.

Maybe, it's time for a new entry in http://ocaml.org/faq.html ?

> I'll be happy to answer your technical questions when you have some.
> But please, a mailing list is not there to organize popularity
> contests.

Thank you for your kindness, but maybe I'll have none.


Sincerely,
Gour


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Re: [Caml-list] Re: new user - old questions

[Gabriel Scherer]

That was me being unusually grumpy, sorry.

Pick any of the first two books mentioned on ocaml.org (Introduction
to OCaml, Developping Applications with OCaml); the one that inspires
you best.

My first hand experience with the latter is that it's good, but
sometimes requires a bit thinking / independent work to digest, and my
second hand experience with the former is that it's also good. You
only read a beginner book from top to bottom once.

If you have suggestions for content that could be added or changed on
ocaml.org, for example to answer your question better, they are warmly
welcome. One can even directly send patches to
https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml.org .

On Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 10:57 AM, Gour <gour@atmarama.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Dec 2012 10:01:54 +0100
> Gabriel Scherer <gabriel.scherer@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The Caml mailing-list is not a social network to make friends and (+1)
>> other comments to confirm your agreement.
>
> I must say I do not understand your comment.
>
> I
>> When I first read your question, I decided to answer it by pointing
>> you to an answer to a similar question on StackOverflow:
>>   http://stackoverflow.com/a/9358776/298143
>
> That would be better option than you comment above, imho.
>
>> I noticed that the ocaml.org page you were pointed to had much of the
>> same content (minus the subjective comments), and was therefore an
>> excellent reference. What need would there be to answer you if you are
>> already given a good list placed on an authoritative *and*
>> community-handled website?
>
> I clearly wrote: "I saw references at the site, but looking for some
> "1st hand experience(s)" which implies I'm aware of ocaml.org, but
> looking for some opinion which book is best suited for someone starting
> with the language, iow. looking for "subjective comments".
>
> If such questions and answers do not belong here, then I must say it's
> a bit strange (never had such experience on other-language's lists).
>
>> On the contrary, if people have something to add, they would do more
>> good submitting a patch to improve the website rather than answering
>> your question here and now, that will end up lost in the mailing-list
>> archives.
>
> Maybe, it's time for a new entry in http://ocaml.org/faq.html ?
>
>> I'll be happy to answer your technical questions when you have some.
>> But please, a mailing list is not there to organize popularity
>> contests.
>
> Thank you for your kindness, but maybe I'll have none.
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Gour
>

[Caml-list] Re: new user - old questions

[Gour]

On Tue, 25 Dec 2012 11:16:35 +0100
Gabriel Scherer <gabriel.scherer@gmail.com> wrote:

> That was me being unusually grumpy, sorry.

It's nice to hear it's "unusual". :-)

> My first hand experience with the latter is that it's good, but
> sometimes requires a bit thinking / independent work to digest, and my
> second hand experience with the former is that it's also good. You
> only read a beginner book from top to bottom once.

Thank you.

Now I feel much better and hope you feel alright as well. ;)

> If you have suggestions for content that could be added or changed on
> ocaml.org, for example to answer your question better, they are warmly
> welcome. 

Take a look at http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Books book
descriptions which offer a bit more.

> One can even directly send patches to
> https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml.org .

I'll do when I get my own experience 1st.

Another point: as  I wrote in another thread - Gmane is not mentioned
at all at http://ocaml.org/mailing_lists.html and info at
http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.caml.inria is not correct since
mailing list software requires confirming every message if one is not
subscribed.


Sincerely,
Gour

-- 
The senses are so strong and impetuous, O Arjuna, 
that they forcibly carry away the mind even of a man 
of discrimination who is endeavoring to control them.

http://www.atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: 52B5C810

Re: [Caml-list] new user - old questions

[Lukasz Stafiniak]

On Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 2:46 AM, Francois Berenger <berenger@riken.jp> wrote:
> On 12/25/2012 02:59 AM, Siraaj Khandkar wrote:
>
> There is also this quite thorough book:
> "Developing Applications With Objective Caml"
> http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/html/index.html
>
> I just wish the book would have some example of an Error monad.
> I mean, something advanced you don't find in a lot of other languages.

For some less run-of-the-mill introductory material, you can have a look at:
http://www.ii.uni.wroc.pl/~lukstafi/pmwiki/index.php?n=Functional.Functional
But (related to discussion on Google+) an Error monad transformer
rather than a standalone monad, would be more useful in OCaml. For
example, the Lwt monad is also an Error monad that captures the
built-in exceptions.

Re: [Caml-list] new user - old questions

[Fabrice Le Fessant]

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Hi,

On 12/24/2012 10:36 AM, Gour wrote:
> Now I wonder about Typerex which looks cool, but I was told on #ocaml
> that it's "dead project" and was recommended to use tuareg mode?

Typerex is not dead, it is just sleeping for a while :-)

In the first version, we prototyped an external server that discusses 
with different editors, but it was complex, difficult to maintain, and 
actually hard to port to other editors than Emacs.

So, we are now working on a different architecture, we develop most of 
the features as independent libraries, that can either be put together 
in one standalone editor in OCaml, or in different executables that are 
called by standard editors, à la ocamlspotter. The new version is not 
yet ready for use, but the project is not dead, for sure.

--Fabrice

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email;internet:fabrice.le_fessant@inria.fr
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[Caml-list] Re: new user - old questions

[Gour]

On Mon, 24 Dec 2012 18:04:43 +0100
Fabrice Le Fessant <Fabrice.Le_fessant@inria.fr> wrote:

> Typerex is not dead, it is just sleeping for a while :-)

:-)

> So, we are now working on a different architecture, we develop most
> of the features as independent libraries, that can either be put
> together in one standalone editor in OCaml, or in different
> executables that are called by standard editors, à la ocamlspotter.
> The new version is not yet ready for use, but the project is not
> dead, for sure.

Thank you for reply.

Do you believe that new version will be useful for Vim users as well?


Sincerely,
Gour


-- 
Everyone is forced to act helplessly according to the qualities 
he has acquired from the modes of material nature; therefore no 
one can refrain from doing something, not even for a moment.

http://www.atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: 52B5C810

Re: [Caml-list] new user - old questions

[rixed]

-[ Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 10:36:40AM +0100, Gour ]----
> b) it looks that Emacs is the best-supported editor for OCaml. How is
> support in Vim/Geany? What do you recommend?

Depends of course of your expectations.
If you plan to use vim I highly recommend you try this:
http://github.com/avsm/ocaml-annot

If you compile your source code with -annot then you'll be able to print any
value's type with a single key while in vi. This is the only advanced feature
I use (beside code highlighting) when editing ocaml source files.

Re: [Caml-list] new user - old questions

[Martin DeMello]

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another option is to use emacs and evil-mode as a vim emulator on top of
it. I've done this before when experimenting with languages that had better
emacs than vim support (in particular, i notice emacs modes tend to have
much better autoindenting than vim ones)

martin
On Dec 26, 2012 12:40 AM, <rixed@happyleptic.org> wrote:

> -[ Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 10:36:40AM +0100, Gour ]----
> > b) it looks that Emacs is the best-supported editor for OCaml. How is
> > support in Vim/Geany? What do you recommend?
>
> Depends of course of your expectations.
> If you plan to use vim I highly recommend you try this:
> http://github.com/avsm/ocaml-annot
>
> If you compile your source code with -annot then you'll be able to print
> any
> value's type with a single key while in vi. This is the only advanced
> feature
> I use (beside code highlighting) when editing ocaml source files.
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/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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Re: [Caml-list] new user - old questions

[Lukasz Stafiniak]

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On Mon, Dec 24, 2012 at 10:36 AM, Gour <gour@atmarama.net> wrote:

> Hello!
>
> Some years ago I was looking for adequate language for one open-source
> project to be done in free time and although I took a look at OCaml,
> somehow, I didn't like syntax and went playing with Haskell.
>
> Never really grokked monads and had feeling that despite nice syntax,
> some things are more complicated for pragmatic programming than they
> should be.
>

[shameless plug] If you'd like to revisit monads and learn other cool
stuff, have a look at "Functional programming in OCaml"
http://www.ii.uni.wroc.pl/~lukstafi/pmwiki/index.php?n=Functional.Functional

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