[Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Martin DeMello]

I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a good
(beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and trying
out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:

* vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who want to
use them will know how to do it)
* anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows and OSX,
and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
* anything that needed fiddling with config files just to install it
* anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently present
and configured (!)
* anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support OCaml 4

I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and Geany won
out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being able to
find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a perfect
beginner-friendly experience.

So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting Geany as
the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd be happy
to write up a page on it and contribute it.

martin

Re: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Ashish Agarwal]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1807 bytes --]

This page [1] needs some help and is probably a good place for discussion
about IDEs. Please add any discussion you'd like and we'll merge it. Given
your list below, maybe you want to make a table of features with a
checkmark for each IDE having that feature (but that could be hard to
maintain, so plain prose might be better).

[1] http://ocaml.org/dev_tools.html

On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 7:49 PM, Martin DeMello <martindemello@gmail.com>wrote:

> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a good
> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and trying
> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
>
> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who want to
> use them will know how to do it)
> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows and OSX,
> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to install it
> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently present
> and configured (!)
> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support OCaml 4
>
> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and Geany won
> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being able to
> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a perfect
> beginner-friendly experience.
>
> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting Geany as
> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd be happy
> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
>
> martin
>
> --
> 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] geany as an ocaml ide

[Louis Gesbert]

OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment working precisely 
on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor that runs on Linux, OSX and 
Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment but already has code edition and 
working toplevel interaction (no compilation or project yet).

Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient features for 
beginners and students. If successful, it will then be extended to handle 
bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration, etc.).

Until then, you may see the project's github page at
https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)

--
Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro

Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a good
> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and trying
> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
> 
> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who want to
> use them will know how to do it)
> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows and OSX,
> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to install it
> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently present
> and configured (!)
> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support OCaml 4
> 
> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and Geany won
> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being able to
> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a perfect
> beginner-friendly experience.
> 
> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting Geany as
> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd be happy
> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
> 
> martin

Re: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Gabriel Scherer]

I must say I'm a bit dubious of dedicated editors: people prefer to
use the tools they're familiar with from other languages, and I'm not
really sure what the added value of a different tool would be. There
have been attempts to write editors for OCaml (Cameleon{,2}, zed (
https://github.com/diml/zed )...), so far none of them really gained
traction.

Volunteers work on whatever they fancy and I prefer not to interfere
negatively -- though it's unclear in this case whether this is a
personal side-project or an OCamlPro project. Moreover, all these
efforts have led to interesting byproducts: various libraries from
Cameleon (eg. ocaml-rss http://zoggy.github.com/ocamlrss/ ) and zed (
and in particular the nice toplevel utop https://github.com/diml/utop
).

That said, I would still feel more enthusiastic about a project that
can be used with other tools people use ( this is a good property of
ocp-indent for example ), or directly improving OCaml support about
tools that already have a user base : syntax highlighting libraries
for various editors, etc. For example, Online Client-side
Javascript-implemented In-the-cloud programming editors are all the
rage now, they use a relatively small number of popular Javascript
edition engines under the hood, is there work to do to make sure OCaml
a first-class citizen there?

On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 12:40 PM, Louis Gesbert
<louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com> wrote:
> OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment working precisely
> on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor that runs on Linux, OSX and
> Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment but already has code edition and
> working toplevel interaction (no compilation or project yet).
>
> Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient features for
> beginners and students. If successful, it will then be extended to handle
> bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration, etc.).
>
> Until then, you may see the project's github page at
> https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)
>
> --
> Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
>
> Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
>> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a good
>> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and trying
>> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
>>
>> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who want to
>> use them will know how to do it)
>> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows and OSX,
>> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
>> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to install it
>> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently present
>> and configured (!)
>> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support OCaml 4
>>
>> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and Geany won
>> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being able to
>> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a perfect
>> beginner-friendly experience.
>>
>> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting Geany as
>> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd be happy
>> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
>>
>> martin
>
> --
> 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

Re: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Fabrice Le Fessant]

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Hi Gabriel,

   The goal of this editor is not to replace Emacs or VI, but to be part 
of a minimal distribution under Windows (by OCamlPro): the idea is that 
Windows users downloading OCaml should be able to start writing a simple 
OCaml program without installing anything else. Of course, under 
Linux/Mac OS X, or for bigger projects, they would be advised to use 
more powerful editors (Emacs, Vim, Notepad++, etc.).

   Moreover, the two paradigms are not incompatible: you can imagine two 
versions of the "editor", one version with an interface (GTK or 
whatever) to interact with beginners, another version with a 
argument/text interface, to interact with other editors, both providing 
the same set of functionalities (indentation, coloring, documentation, 
code navigation, etc.) through the same set of libraries, and why not a 
Javascript version through js_of_ocaml...

--Fabrice

On 02/11/2013 01:14 PM, Gabriel Scherer wrote:
> I must say I'm a bit dubious of dedicated editors: people prefer to
> use the tools they're familiar with from other languages, and I'm not
> really sure what the added value of a different tool would be. There
> have been attempts to write editors for OCaml (Cameleon{,2}, zed (
> https://github.com/diml/zed )...), so far none of them really gained
> traction.
>
> Volunteers work on whatever they fancy and I prefer not to interfere
> negatively -- though it's unclear in this case whether this is a
> personal side-project or an OCamlPro project. Moreover, all these
> efforts have led to interesting byproducts: various libraries from
> Cameleon (eg. ocaml-rss http://zoggy.github.com/ocamlrss/ ) and zed (
> and in particular the nice toplevel utop https://github.com/diml/utop
> ).
>
> That said, I would still feel more enthusiastic about a project that
> can be used with other tools people use ( this is a good property of
> ocp-indent for example ), or directly improving OCaml support about
> tools that already have a user base : syntax highlighting libraries
> for various editors, etc. For example, Online Client-side
> Javascript-implemented In-the-cloud programming editors are all the
> rage now, they use a relatively small number of popular Javascript
> edition engines under the hood, is there work to do to make sure OCaml
> a first-class citizen there?
>
> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 12:40 PM, Louis Gesbert
> <louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com> wrote:
>> OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment working precisely
>> on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor that runs on Linux, OSX and
>> Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment but already has code edition and
>> working toplevel interaction (no compilation or project yet).
>>
>> Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient features for
>> beginners and students. If successful, it will then be extended to handle
>> bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration, etc.).
>>
>> Until then, you may see the project's github page at
>> https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)
>>
>> --
>> Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
>>
>> Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
>>> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a good
>>> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and trying
>>> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
>>>
>>> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who want to
>>> use them will know how to do it)
>>> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows and OSX,
>>> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
>>> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to install it
>>> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently present
>>> and configured (!)
>>> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support OCaml 4
>>>
>>> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and Geany won
>>> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being able to
>>> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a perfect
>>> beginner-friendly experience.
>>>
>>> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting Geany as
>>> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd be happy
>>> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
>>>
>>> martin
>>
>> --
>> 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] geany as an ocaml ide

[Gabriel Scherer]

The OCaml installer for windows (
http://protz.github.com/ocaml-installer/ ) optionally downloads and
install Emacs, configured for OCaml use. Couldn't the same approach be
used to install Geany (or whatever modern-beginner-friendly existing
editor that works on Windows) on end-user systems?

On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 1:47 PM, Fabrice Le Fessant
<Fabrice.Le_fessant@inria.fr> wrote:
> Hi Gabriel,
>
>   The goal of this editor is not to replace Emacs or VI, but to be part of a
> minimal distribution under Windows (by OCamlPro): the idea is that Windows
> users downloading OCaml should be able to start writing a simple OCaml
> program without installing anything else. Of course, under Linux/Mac OS X,
> or for bigger projects, they would be advised to use more powerful editors
> (Emacs, Vim, Notepad++, etc.).
>
>   Moreover, the two paradigms are not incompatible: you can imagine two
> versions of the "editor", one version with an interface (GTK or whatever) to
> interact with beginners, another version with a argument/text interface, to
> interact with other editors, both providing the same set of functionalities
> (indentation, coloring, documentation, code navigation, etc.) through the
> same set of libraries, and why not a Javascript version through
> js_of_ocaml...
>
> --Fabrice
>
>
> On 02/11/2013 01:14 PM, Gabriel Scherer wrote:
>>
>> I must say I'm a bit dubious of dedicated editors: people prefer to
>> use the tools they're familiar with from other languages, and I'm not
>> really sure what the added value of a different tool would be. There
>> have been attempts to write editors for OCaml (Cameleon{,2}, zed (
>> https://github.com/diml/zed )...), so far none of them really gained
>> traction.
>>
>> Volunteers work on whatever they fancy and I prefer not to interfere
>> negatively -- though it's unclear in this case whether this is a
>> personal side-project or an OCamlPro project. Moreover, all these
>> efforts have led to interesting byproducts: various libraries from
>> Cameleon (eg. ocaml-rss http://zoggy.github.com/ocamlrss/ ) and zed (
>> and in particular the nice toplevel utop https://github.com/diml/utop
>> ).
>>
>> That said, I would still feel more enthusiastic about a project that
>> can be used with other tools people use ( this is a good property of
>> ocp-indent for example ), or directly improving OCaml support about
>> tools that already have a user base : syntax highlighting libraries
>> for various editors, etc. For example, Online Client-side
>> Javascript-implemented In-the-cloud programming editors are all the
>> rage now, they use a relatively small number of popular Javascript
>> edition engines under the hood, is there work to do to make sure OCaml
>> a first-class citizen there?
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 12:40 PM, Louis Gesbert
>> <louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment working
>>> precisely
>>> on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor that runs on Linux,
>>> OSX and
>>> Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment but already has code edition
>>> and
>>> working toplevel interaction (no compilation or project yet).
>>>
>>> Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient features
>>> for
>>> beginners and students. If successful, it will then be extended to handle
>>> bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration, etc.).
>>>
>>> Until then, you may see the project's github page at
>>> https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)
>>>
>>> --
>>> Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
>>>
>>> Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
>>>>
>>>> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a good
>>>> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and trying
>>>> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
>>>>
>>>> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who want to
>>>> use them will know how to do it)
>>>> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows and OSX,
>>>> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
>>>> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to install it
>>>> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently present
>>>> and configured (!)
>>>> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support OCaml 4
>>>>
>>>> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and Geany won
>>>> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being able to
>>>> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a perfect
>>>> beginner-friendly experience.
>>>>
>>>> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting Geany as
>>>> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd be happy
>>>> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
>>>>
>>>> martin
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> 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
>>
>>
>

Re: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Fabrice Le Fessant]

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We are all using different editors, and sometimes, we are even using the 
same editor with different OCaml modes. The point is not to choose the 
editor beginners are going to use in the next 20 years, but to provide a 
minimal environment for beginners with OCaml.

Actually, many programmers use an editor specific to their language 
(Eclipse for Java, Charm for Python, etc.), because they often provide a 
better environment for that language than generic editors.

We decided to implement a new editor because we wanted to design the 
basic building blocks both for this simple editor, and to be useful to 
improve existing editors (Emacs, Vim, etc.).

--Fabrice

On 02/11/2013 01:59 PM, Gabriel Scherer wrote:
> The OCaml installer for windows (
> http://protz.github.com/ocaml-installer/ ) optionally downloads and
> install Emacs, configured for OCaml use. Couldn't the same approach be
> used to install Geany (or whatever modern-beginner-friendly existing
> editor that works on Windows) on end-user systems?
>
> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 1:47 PM, Fabrice Le Fessant
> <Fabrice.Le_fessant@inria.fr> wrote:
>> Hi Gabriel,
>>
>>    The goal of this editor is not to replace Emacs or VI, but to be part of a
>> minimal distribution under Windows (by OCamlPro): the idea is that Windows
>> users downloading OCaml should be able to start writing a simple OCaml
>> program without installing anything else. Of course, under Linux/Mac OS X,
>> or for bigger projects, they would be advised to use more powerful editors
>> (Emacs, Vim, Notepad++, etc.).
>>
>>    Moreover, the two paradigms are not incompatible: you can imagine two
>> versions of the "editor", one version with an interface (GTK or whatever) to
>> interact with beginners, another version with a argument/text interface, to
>> interact with other editors, both providing the same set of functionalities
>> (indentation, coloring, documentation, code navigation, etc.) through the
>> same set of libraries, and why not a Javascript version through
>> js_of_ocaml...
>>
>> --Fabrice

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Re: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Daniel Bünzli]

Le lundi, 11 février 2013 à 13:14, Gabriel Scherer a écrit :
> I must say I'm a bit dubious of dedicated editors: people prefer to
> use the tools they're familiar with from other languages, and I'm not
> really sure what the added value of a different tool would be.  

Yes, I would actually advise any beginner to take time to teach them once vim or emacs. Having done that they will have a tool they can use with almost any language under any circumstance (e.g. on a server via tty).

I really don't believe in language specific editors, you rarely program in a single language at the same time -- shell script, C, tex, xml, json, configuration files, etc.

Daniel

Re: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Martin DeMello]

Hi Louis,

That looks very interesting. Sorry if this seems like a rude question;
I truly don't mean it that way, but if your editor needs a few months
of work, why not work on a stripped-down interface for OCamlEditor
[http://ocamleditor.forge.ocamlcore.org/] instead? I remember when I
was learning web development I enjoyed using Evrsoft's "1st Page" IDE,
which had modes that would add or remove bits from the interface as
you progressed from beginner to power user, and something like that
would be very nice to have for OCaml.

martin

On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Louis Gesbert
<louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com> wrote:
> OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment working precisely
> on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor that runs on Linux, OSX and
> Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment but already has code edition and
> working toplevel interaction (no compilation or project yet).
>
> Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient features for
> beginners and students. If successful, it will then be extended to handle
> bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration, etc.).
>
> Until then, you may see the project's github page at
> https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)
>
> --
> Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
>
> Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
>> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a good
>> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and trying
>> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
>>
>> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who want to
>> use them will know how to do it)
>> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows and OSX,
>> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
>> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to install it
>> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently present
>> and configured (!)
>> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support OCaml 4
>>
>> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and Geany won
>> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being able to
>> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a perfect
>> beginner-friendly experience.
>>
>> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting Geany as
>> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd be happy
>> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
>>
>> martin
>
> --
> 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

Re: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Louis Gesbert]

Hi,

No offence taken :). OCamlEditor indeed looks like a very interesting project, 
with lots of features already present. But the scope and project goals are not 
the same though, so I think ocp-editor still has a place on its own ;

One of our main goals is to make IDE bricks available publicly, so I think the 
projects can benefit to one another. I would be glad to borrow some widgets from 
OCamlEditor, and it could use automatic indentation or better toplevel process 
interaction.

If the author -- Francesco Tovagliari -- is around here, I would be glad to know 
how he feels about this ?

--
Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro

Le mardi 12 février 2013 00:24:36, Martin DeMello a écrit :
> Hi Louis,
> 
> That looks very interesting. Sorry if this seems like a rude question;
> I truly don't mean it that way, but if your editor needs a few months
> of work, why not work on a stripped-down interface for OCamlEditor
> [http://ocamleditor.forge.ocamlcore.org/] instead? I remember when I
> was learning web development I enjoyed using Evrsoft's "1st Page" IDE,
> which had modes that would add or remove bits from the interface as
> you progressed from beginner to power user, and something like that
> would be very nice to have for OCaml.
> 
> martin
> 
> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Louis Gesbert
> 
> <louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com> wrote:
> > OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment working
> > precisely on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor that runs
> > on Linux, OSX and Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment but already
> > has code edition and working toplevel interaction (no compilation or
> > project yet).
> > 
> > Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient features
> > for beginners and students. If successful, it will then be extended to
> > handle bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration, etc.).
> > 
> > Until then, you may see the project's github page at
> > https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)
> > 
> > --
> > Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
> > 
> > Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
> >> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a good
> >> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and trying
> >> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
> >> 
> >> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who want to
> >> use them will know how to do it)
> >> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows and OSX,
> >> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
> >> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to install it
> >> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently present
> >> and configured (!)
> >> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support OCaml 4
> >> 
> >> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and Geany won
> >> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being able to
> >> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a perfect
> >> beginner-friendly experience.
> >> 
> >> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting Geany as
> >> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd be happy
> >> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
> >> 
> >> martin
> > 
> > --
> > 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

AW: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Gerd Stolpmann]

Hi,

it is good to see that there is again some activity on the editor/ide  
issue. However, I see that there is one main problem of all current  
acitivities: nobody asks the potential users what they want.

Of course, there are many "preferences" in this area, and this is  
subjective, and not really debatable. You can like the result or not.  
But - and this is my point - there are also hard requirements. Again,  
this is different per user, but these points are not a matter of taste.

Just to make an example: Personally, I'm still sticking to emacs  
(although latest tuareg-mode is error-prone), mainly because it has one  
killer feature: Tramp. You need to know that I'm often not building my  
programs on the machine I'm sitting at, but I'm remotely logging in to  
another machine (often over continents). Tramp is an emacs module to  
edit files remotely via ssh/sftp.

My guess is that there are many other users who would profit from such  
a feature. Nevertheless, it is not popping up anywhere else - strange  
enough, since we left the "PC" era long ago where everything had to  
happen locally on your own computer. The IDEs seem not to have left  
this era, and in a time where everything moves to the cloud this is  
really anachronistic.

It is clear to me that many features of IDEs are more difficult to  
implement with such a requirement, as the latency to open files is way  
higher. But on my side there is nothing to discuss, as remotely editing  
files is more important than anything else.

Another point from the perspective of a professional: There is  
absolutely no need to integrate build support into the IDE (like  
OCamlEditor tries to do). We have already utilities for this, and these  
are scriptable - which is a MUST-HAVE for all professional use (think  
of continuous integration, for instance).

Gerd


Am 12.02.2013 12:29:41 schrieb(en) Louis Gesbert:
> Hi,
> 
> No offence taken :). OCamlEditor indeed looks like a very interesting  
> project,
> with lots of features already present. But the scope and project  
> goals are not
> the same though, so I think ocp-editor still has a place on its own ;
> 
> One of our main goals is to make IDE bricks available publicly, so I  
> think the
> projects can benefit to one another. I would be glad to borrow some  
> widgets from
> OCamlEditor, and it could use automatic indentation or better  
> toplevel process
> interaction.
> 
> If the author -- Francesco Tovagliari -- is around here, I would be  
> glad to know
> how he feels about this ?
> 
> --
> Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
> 
> Le mardi 12 février 2013 00:24:36, Martin DeMello a écrit :
> > Hi Louis,
> >
> > That looks very interesting. Sorry if this seems like a rude  
> question;
> > I truly don't mean it that way, but if your editor needs a few  
> months
> > of work, why not work on a stripped-down interface for OCamlEditor
> > [http://ocamleditor.forge.ocamlcore.org/] instead? I remember when I
> > was learning web development I enjoyed using Evrsoft's "1st Page"  
> IDE,
> > which had modes that would add or remove bits from the interface as
> > you progressed from beginner to power user, and something like that
> > would be very nice to have for OCaml.
> >
> > martin
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Louis Gesbert
> >
> > <louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com> wrote:
> > > OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment  
> working
> > > precisely on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor that  
> runs
> > > on Linux, OSX and Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment but  
> already
> > > has code edition and working toplevel interaction (no compilation  
> or
> > > project yet).
> > >
> > > Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient  
> features
> > > for beginners and students. If successful, it will then be  
> extended to
> > > handle bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration,  
> etc.).
> > >
> > > Until then, you may see the project's github page at
> > > https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)
> > >
> > > --
> > > Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
> > >
> > > Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
> > >> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a  
> good
> > >> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and  
> trying
> > >> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
> > >>
> > >> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who want  
> to
> > >> use them will know how to do it)
> > >> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows and  
> OSX,
> > >> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
> > >> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to  
> install it
> > >> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently  
> present
> > >> and configured (!)
> > >> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support OCaml 4
> > >>
> > >> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and  
> Geany won
> > >> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being  
> able to
> > >> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a  
> perfect
> > >> beginner-friendly experience.
> > >>
> > >> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting  
> Geany as
> > >> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd be  
> happy
> > >> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
> > >>
> > >> martin
> > >
> > > --
> > > 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 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
> 



-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
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
------------------------------------------------------------

Re: AW: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Wojciech Meyer]

Hi,

I think we should stick into two of these options:

- provide a exhaustive framework for supporting editors, with possible
  bindings everywhere, and let the community to write needed plugs for
  the existing editors. It's already happened with OCaIDE. Looking at
  projects like Slime for Common Lisp, our Typerex, it probably requires
  to act as a client-server application. It's not necessary though,
  Eclipse for Java is a primary example how excellent can be support
  from the IDE without listening to a socket. However, the architecture
  needs to be well thought and it must work across different APIs,
  Eclipse, VIM, Emacs and other editors I don't know much about.
  So in summary there are few things to consider:

-- syntax highlighting and indentation - best if that worked across
   lines of code. This is basic feature most people just need to have to work
   on Caml code;
-- navigation and refactoring - with an interactive support of the
   editor - so refactor one bit and continue to the next or abandon last
   change, etc;
-- tooling integration - invocation of the compiler, integration with
   the toplevel, navigation to auto-generated docs etc;
-- completion mechanism and decent error recovery - that means we
   probably can't use OCaml parser as it does not re-cover very well
   from errors. What we need is to run exact OCaml parser and when it
   fails fallback to approximate context parser, which will do the error
   recovery then.
-- debugging the code with help of IDE.

- the second important idea, is to introduce people that are not (yet)
  familiar with software engineering as such, and they it's their first
  encounter with the programming. TryOCaml website does partial job of
  dragging these people to OCaml world, however it solves very well
  slightly different problem, it introduces people to OCaml regardless
  previous exposure to writing code.  Here, I'm talking mostly here
  about kids that want to write and see games in OCaml, students that
  are interested in genuine programming but never happen to be
  interested in tooling or they don't have time for it (or not required
  because they are not developers) and people that chosen that their
  first ever programming language would be OCaml.

Now in my measures minimal cost would be to provide something like
WinOCaml were, in terms of minimal editor that just does very well few
things: editing and interaction with toplevel, compilation with one
keystroke, basic syntax highlighting and clever enough indentation
scheme that does not go on the way. Just forget about fancy features, if
somebody wants them, then go for the "real editor" like before mentioned
ones. Just discourage people for being efficient in such environment and
they will seamlessly consider better environment. I also concur idea
that we could support cloud editors which boomed these days over the
web.

So the basic editor -- should be just activation energy for people
interested in learning OCaml, heard that's brilliant language but don't
feel yet to get into maze of tooling.

The first aspect - providing enough libraries and context for developing
the future IDEs in OCaml is also the important one -- that's the
community who should do it, not anybody else - even the community who
are not directly related to OCaml -- that's it, think about Eclipse
written in Java have some very nice C++ support in form of CDT. Think
about Emacs written in Elisp which has a nice generic support for C++
and Java in form of CEDET or JDE.

So I understand the confusion here, but I think we should clearly draw
the line between providing a framework for others to support editing,
and very simple and domain specific editor for the beginners.

--
Wojciech Meyer
http://danmey.org

PS: tramp is also one of the must have features to me in Emacs.

Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de> writes:


> Just to make an example: Personally, I'm still sticking to emacs
> (although latest tuareg-mode is error-prone), mainly because it has one
> killer feature: Tramp. You need to know that I'm often not building my
> programs on the machine I'm sitting at, but I'm remotely logging in to
> another machine (often over continents). Tramp is an emacs module to
> edit files remotely via ssh/sftp.
Yes, I also require tramp.
>
> My guess is that there are many other users who would profit from such
> a feature. Nevertheless, it is not popping up anywhere else - strange
> enough, since we left the "PC" era long ago where everything had to
> happen locally on your own computer. The IDEs seem not to have left
> this era, and in a time where everything moves to the cloud this is
> really anachronistic.
>
> It is clear to me that many features of IDEs are more difficult to
> implement with such a requirement, as the latency to open files is way
> higher. But on my side there is nothing to discuss, as remotely editing
> files is more important than anything else.
>
> Another point from the perspective of a professional: There is
> absolutely no need to integrate build support into the IDE (like
> OCamlEditor tries to do). We have already utilities for this, and these
> are scriptable - which is a MUST-HAVE for all professional use (think
> of continuous integration, for instance).
>
> Gerd
>
>
> Am 12.02.2013 12:29:41 schrieb(en) Louis Gesbert:
>> Hi,
>>
>> No offence taken :). OCamlEditor indeed looks like a very interesting
>> project,
>> with lots of features already present. But the scope and project
>> goals are not
>> the same though, so I think ocp-editor still has a place on its own ;
>>
>> One of our main goals is to make IDE bricks available publicly, so I
>> think the
>> projects can benefit to one another. I would be glad to borrow some
>> widgets from
>> OCamlEditor, and it could use automatic indentation or better
>> toplevel process
>> interaction.
>>
>> If the author -- Francesco Tovagliari -- is around here, I would be
>> glad to know
>> how he feels about this ?
>>
>> --
>> Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
>>
>> Le mardi 12 février 2013 00:24:36, Martin DeMello a écrit :
>> > Hi Louis,
>> >
>> > That looks very interesting. Sorry if this seems like a rude
>> question;
>> > I truly don't mean it that way, but if your editor needs a few
>> months
>> > of work, why not work on a stripped-down interface for OCamlEditor
>> > [http://ocamleditor.forge.ocamlcore.org/] instead? I remember when I
>> > was learning web development I enjoyed using Evrsoft's "1st Page"
>> IDE,
>> > which had modes that would add or remove bits from the interface as
>> > you progressed from beginner to power user, and something like that
>> > would be very nice to have for OCaml.
>> >
>> > martin
>> >
>> > On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Louis Gesbert
>> >
>> > <louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com> wrote:
>> > > OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment
>> working
>> > > precisely on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor that
>> runs
>> > > on Linux, OSX and Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment but
>> already
>> > > has code edition and working toplevel interaction (no compilation
>> or
>> > > project yet).
>> > >
>> > > Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient
>> features
>> > > for beginners and students. If successful, it will then be
>> extended to
>> > > handle bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration,
>> etc.).
>> > >
>> > > Until then, you may see the project's github page at
>> > > https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)
>> > >
>> > > --
>> > > Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
>> > >
>> > > Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
>> > >> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a
>> good
>> > >> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and
>> trying
>> > >> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
>> > >>
>> > >> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who want
>> to
>> > >> use them will know how to do it)
>> > >> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows and
>> OSX,
>> > >> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
>> > >> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to
>> install it
>> > >> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently
>> present
>> > >> and configured (!)
>> > >> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support OCaml 4
>> > >>
>> > >> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and
>> Geany won
>> > >> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being
>> able to
>> > >> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a
>> perfect
>> > >> beginner-friendly experience.
>> > >>
>> > >> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting
>> Geany as
>> > >> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd be
>> happy
>> > >> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
>> > >>
>> > >> martin
>> > >
>> > > --
>> > > 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 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
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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
> ------------------------------------------------------------

AW: AW: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Gerd Stolpmann]

Am 13.02.2013 16:41:57 schrieb(en) Wojciech Meyer:
> Hi,
> 
> I think we should stick into two of these options:
> 
> - provide a exhaustive framework for supporting editors, with possible
>   bindings everywhere, and let the community to write needed plugs for
>   the existing editors.

I can well imagine such a toolkit - basically an editor without user  
interface. It would just consist of the underlying modules, and would  
solve all difficult tasks - like incremental indentation, or  
transparent network file access. Other developers can then pick things  
up - only parts, or everything - and I'm sure we'll see then a couple  
of GUIs on top of this, some expressive, some minimalistic, some  
specializing on certain domains (web, GUI, etc.), some cloning emacs.  
And, as you write, existing editors can be "upgraded" by providing  
bindings.

Let's call this "editor" ModelOnly (following the common  
model/view/controller abstraction).

> - the second important idea, is to introduce people that are not (yet)
>   familiar with software engineering as such, and they it's their  
> first
>   encounter with the programming. TryOCaml website does partial job of
>   dragging these people to OCaml world, however it solves very well
>   slightly different problem, it introduces people to OCaml regardless
>   previous exposure to writing code.  Here, I'm talking mostly here
>   about kids that want to write and see games in OCaml, students that
>   are interested in genuine programming but never happen to be
>   interested in tooling or they don't have time for it (or not  
> required
>   because they are not developers) and people that chosen that their
>   first ever programming language would be OCaml.

I think this is just a matter of a simple GUI that focuses on the parts  
that are important for beginners, e.g. explaining typing.

This is not something entirely different, but just a special  
application of the general editor library. IMO, the difficult part is  
really the model, not the GUI (let it be desktop or web based), as  
plugging a few Gtk widgets together is not that hard. Once there is a  
good model library we'll certainly see an excellent GUI focusing on  
students.

> So I understand the confusion here, but I think we should clearly draw
> the line between providing a framework for others to support editing,
> and very simple and domain specific editor for the beginners.

I completely agree that there are totally different requirements if you  
compare the needs of beginners and professionals. However, this is  
mostly a matter of presentation, and implementation-wise, there is a  
lot of overlap, and also an editor for beginners would profit from a  
good model library.

Gerd

> 
> --
> Wojciech Meyer
> http://danmey.org
> 
> PS: tramp is also one of the must have features to me in Emacs.
> 
> Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de> writes:
> 
> 
> > Just to make an example: Personally, I'm still sticking to emacs
> > (although latest tuareg-mode is error-prone), mainly because it has  
> one
> > killer feature: Tramp. You need to know that I'm often not building  
> my
> > programs on the machine I'm sitting at, but I'm remotely logging in  
> to
> > another machine (often over continents). Tramp is an emacs module to
> > edit files remotely via ssh/sftp.
> Yes, I also require tramp.
> >
> > My guess is that there are many other users who would profit from  
> such
> > a feature. Nevertheless, it is not popping up anywhere else -  
> strange
> > enough, since we left the "PC" era long ago where everything had to
> > happen locally on your own computer. The IDEs seem not to have left
> > this era, and in a time where everything moves to the cloud this is
> > really anachronistic.
> >
> > It is clear to me that many features of IDEs are more difficult to
> > implement with such a requirement, as the latency to open files is  
> way
> > higher. But on my side there is nothing to discuss, as remotely  
> editing
> > files is more important than anything else.
> >
> > Another point from the perspective of a professional: There is
> > absolutely no need to integrate build support into the IDE (like
> > OCamlEditor tries to do). We have already utilities for this, and  
> these
> > are scriptable - which is a MUST-HAVE for all professional use  
> (think
> > of continuous integration, for instance).
> >
> > Gerd
> >
> >
> > Am 12.02.2013 12:29:41 schrieb(en) Louis Gesbert:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> No offence taken :). OCamlEditor indeed looks like a very  
> interesting
> >> project,
> >> with lots of features already present. But the scope and project
> >> goals are not
> >> the same though, so I think ocp-editor still has a place on its  
> own ;
> >>
> >> One of our main goals is to make IDE bricks available publicly, so  
> I
> >> think the
> >> projects can benefit to one another. I would be glad to borrow some
> >> widgets from
> >> OCamlEditor, and it could use automatic indentation or better
> >> toplevel process
> >> interaction.
> >>
> >> If the author -- Francesco Tovagliari -- is around here, I would be
> >> glad to know
> >> how he feels about this ?
> >>
> >> --
> >> Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
> >>
> >> Le mardi 12 février 2013 00:24:36, Martin DeMello a écrit :
> >> > Hi Louis,
> >> >
> >> > That looks very interesting. Sorry if this seems like a rude
> >> question;
> >> > I truly don't mean it that way, but if your editor needs a few
> >> months
> >> > of work, why not work on a stripped-down interface for  
> OCamlEditor
> >> > [http://ocamleditor.forge.ocamlcore.org/] instead? I remember  
> when I
> >> > was learning web development I enjoyed using Evrsoft's "1st Page"
> >> IDE,
> >> > which had modes that would add or remove bits from the interface  
> as
> >> > you progressed from beginner to power user, and something like  
> that
> >> > would be very nice to have for OCaml.
> >> >
> >> > martin
> >> >
> >> > On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Louis Gesbert
> >> >
> >> > <louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com> wrote:
> >> > > OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment
> >> working
> >> > > precisely on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor  
> that
> >> runs
> >> > > on Linux, OSX and Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment but
> >> already
> >> > > has code edition and working toplevel interaction (no  
> compilation
> >> or
> >> > > project yet).
> >> > >
> >> > > Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient
> >> features
> >> > > for beginners and students. If successful, it will then be
> >> extended to
> >> > > handle bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration,
> >> etc.).
> >> > >
> >> > > Until then, you may see the project's github page at
> >> > > https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)
> >> > >
> >> > > --
> >> > > Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
> >> > >
> >> > > Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
> >> > >> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a
> >> good
> >> > >> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and
> >> trying
> >> > >> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
> >> > >>
> >> > >> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who  
> want
> >> to
> >> > >> use them will know how to do it)
> >> > >> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows  
> and
> >> OSX,
> >> > >> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
> >> > >> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to
> >> install it
> >> > >> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently
> >> present
> >> > >> and configured (!)
> >> > >> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support  
> OCaml 4
> >> > >>
> >> > >> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and
> >> Geany won
> >> > >> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being
> >> able to
> >> > >> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a
> >> perfect
> >> > >> beginner-friendly experience.
> >> > >>
> >> > >> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting
> >> Geany as
> >> > >> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd  
> be
> >> happy
> >> > >> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
> >> > >>
> >> > >> martin
> >> > >
> >> > > --
> >> > > 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 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
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > 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
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> --
> 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
> 



-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
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
------------------------------------------------------------

Re: AW: AW: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Wojciech Meyer]

Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de> writes:

> I can well imagine such a toolkit - basically an editor without user
> interface. It would just consist of the underlying modules, and would
> solve all difficult tasks - like incremental indentation, or
> transparent network file access. Other developers can then pick things
> up - only parts, or everything - and I'm sure we'll see then a couple
> of GUIs on top of this, some expressive, some minimalistic, some
> specializing on certain domains (web, GUI, etc.), some cloning emacs.
> And, as you write, existing editors can be "upgraded" by providing
> bindings.

I think the major point we raised here, that we all want the same from the
editor: syntax highlighting, parsing in the background, invoking tools,
editing over the network etc. However, each of us, have a completely
different taste of how we interact with the editor and how we use the
GUI. For one person this might be Emacs which wins, other prefer
Code::Blocks. What matters here is not to focus on GUI but the features
that would be accessible from the different frontends. (which seem to be
a little hard, given diversity of the solutions on the market, but
perhaps possible)

> Let's call this "editor" ModelOnly (following the common
> model/view/controller abstraction).

Certainly one does not exclude the other option!

I just drew the border of the simple editor, and design requriments for
the "ModelOnly".

> I completely agree that there are totally different requirements if you
> compare the needs of beginners and professionals. However, this is
> mostly a matter of presentation, and implementation-wise, there is a
> lot of overlap, and also an editor for beginners would profit from a
> good model library.

One could think about different incarnations of the same editor, did
anybody think about Emacs, beginner mode, with CUA bindings and limited
access to the functionality just so to make it easily accessible for the
beginners?

>
> Gerd
>
>>
>> --
>> Wojciech Meyer
>> http://danmey.org
>>
>> PS: tramp is also one of the must have features to me in Emacs.
>>
>> Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de> writes:
>>
>>
>> > Just to make an example: Personally, I'm still sticking to emacs
>> > (although latest tuareg-mode is error-prone), mainly because it has
>> one
>> > killer feature: Tramp. You need to know that I'm often not building
>> my
>> > programs on the machine I'm sitting at, but I'm remotely logging in
>> to
>> > another machine (often over continents). Tramp is an emacs module to
>> > edit files remotely via ssh/sftp.
>> Yes, I also require tramp.
>> >
>> > My guess is that there are many other users who would profit from
>> such
>> > a feature. Nevertheless, it is not popping up anywhere else -
>> strange
>> > enough, since we left the "PC" era long ago where everything had to
>> > happen locally on your own computer. The IDEs seem not to have left
>> > this era, and in a time where everything moves to the cloud this is
>> > really anachronistic.
>> >
>> > It is clear to me that many features of IDEs are more difficult to
>> > implement with such a requirement, as the latency to open files is
>> way
>> > higher. But on my side there is nothing to discuss, as remotely
>> editing
>> > files is more important than anything else.
>> >
>> > Another point from the perspective of a professional: There is
>> > absolutely no need to integrate build support into the IDE (like
>> > OCamlEditor tries to do). We have already utilities for this, and
>> these
>> > are scriptable - which is a MUST-HAVE for all professional use
>> (think
>> > of continuous integration, for instance).
>> >
>> > Gerd
>> >
>> >
>> > Am 12.02.2013 12:29:41 schrieb(en) Louis Gesbert:
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> No offence taken :). OCamlEditor indeed looks like a very
>> interesting
>> >> project,
>> >> with lots of features already present. But the scope and project
>> >> goals are not
>> >> the same though, so I think ocp-editor still has a place on its
>> own ;
>> >>
>> >> One of our main goals is to make IDE bricks available publicly, so
>> I
>> >> think the
>> >> projects can benefit to one another. I would be glad to borrow some
>> >> widgets from
>> >> OCamlEditor, and it could use automatic indentation or better
>> >> toplevel process
>> >> interaction.
>> >>
>> >> If the author -- Francesco Tovagliari -- is around here, I would be
>> >> glad to know
>> >> how he feels about this ?
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
>> >>
>> >> Le mardi 12 février 2013 00:24:36, Martin DeMello a écrit :
>> >> > Hi Louis,
>> >> >
>> >> > That looks very interesting. Sorry if this seems like a rude
>> >> question;
>> >> > I truly don't mean it that way, but if your editor needs a few
>> >> months
>> >> > of work, why not work on a stripped-down interface for
>> OCamlEditor
>> >> > [http://ocamleditor.forge.ocamlcore.org/] instead? I remember
>> when I
>> >> > was learning web development I enjoyed using Evrsoft's "1st Page"
>> >> IDE,
>> >> > which had modes that would add or remove bits from the interface
>> as
>> >> > you progressed from beginner to power user, and something like
>> that
>> >> > would be very nice to have for OCaml.
>> >> >
>> >> > martin
>> >> >
>> >> > On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Louis Gesbert
>> >> >
>> >> > <louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com> wrote:
>> >> > > OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment
>> >> working
>> >> > > precisely on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor
>> that
>> >> runs
>> >> > > on Linux, OSX and Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment but
>> >> already
>> >> > > has code edition and working toplevel interaction (no
>> compilation
>> >> or
>> >> > > project yet).
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient
>> >> features
>> >> > > for beginners and students. If successful, it will then be
>> >> extended to
>> >> > > handle bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration,
>> >> etc.).
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Until then, you may see the project's github page at
>> >> > > https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)
>> >> > >
>> >> > > --
>> >> > > Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
>> >> > >> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a
>> >> good
>> >> > >> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and
>> >> trying
>> >> > >> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
>> >> > >>
>> >> > >> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who
>> want
>> >> to
>> >> > >> use them will know how to do it)
>> >> > >> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows
>> and
>> >> OSX,
>> >> > >> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
>> >> > >> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to
>> >> install it
>> >> > >> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently
>> >> present
>> >> > >> and configured (!)
>> >> > >> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support
>> OCaml 4
>> >> > >>
>> >> > >> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and
>> >> Geany won
>> >> > >> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being
>> >> able to
>> >> > >> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a
>> >> perfect
>> >> > >> beginner-friendly experience.
>> >> > >>
>> >> > >> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting
>> >> Geany as
>> >> > >> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd
>> be
>> >> happy
>> >> > >> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
>> >> > >>
>> >> > >> martin
>> >> > >
>> >> > > --
>> >> > > 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 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
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > 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
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> --
>> 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
>>

--
Wojciech Meyer
http://danmey.org

Re: AW: AW: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Török Edwin]

On 02/13/2013 11:17 PM, Wojciech Meyer wrote:
> Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de> writes:
> 
>> I can well imagine such a toolkit - basically an editor without user
>> interface. It would just consist of the underlying modules, and would
>> solve all difficult tasks - like incremental indentation, or
>> transparent network file access. Other developers can then pick things
>> up - only parts, or everything - and I'm sure we'll see then a couple
>> of GUIs on top of this, some expressive, some minimalistic, some
>> specializing on certain domains (web, GUI, etc.), some cloning emacs.
>> And, as you write, existing editors can be "upgraded" by providing
>> bindings.
> 
> I think the major point we raised here, that we all want the same from the
> editor: syntax highlighting, parsing in the background, invoking tools,
> editing over the network etc. However, each of us, have a completely
> different taste of how we interact with the editor and how we use the
> GUI.

Don't forget that the preferred "GUI" is sometimes just a console application.
I'm using vim to edit files in remote ssh sessions (unless latency makes it impractical), and even
on the desktop I much prefer the console version: mostly because its so easy to put it into the background, do some other tasks (building / debugging), then bring back the editor to fix things, and so
on. For some reason I also find it easier to switch between console tabs in Konsole than between multiple windows.

> For one person this might be Emacs which wins, other prefer
> Code::Blocks. What matters here is not to focus on GUI but the features
> that would be accessible from the different frontends. (which seem to be
> a little hard, given diversity of the solutions on the market, but
> perhaps possible)

I agree that the focus should be on functionality, if I see an IDE with features I like my first thought would be:
 "thats nice, now how do I make that work in Vim?".
If an OCaml library, or even just a command-line tool is provided that implements feature X independently of the full editor,
then its a matter of writing some editor-specific scripts to hook it up.

On the other hand care should be taken when advertising the editor for beginners:
 - if editor lacks feature X, then a beginner might generalize that to "Ocaml is the language without X"
 - will the editor be maintained with new ocaml releases?
 - once the beginner is ready to move to more advanced features, are they required to abandon the editor, or will it be customizable with plugins?
 - once the beginner is ready to move on to using <his favourite editor>, how can the features of the ocaml editor be accomplished there?

Also are we talking about complete beginners to programming, or beginners to OCaml that know other languages already?

I think that having an ocaml-specific editor with all the features people typically want from the IDE
would not necessarily be bad though, in the sense that it shows whats *possible* for an OCaml editor. And it'd be something people can easily try out.
For example Java has an IDE written in Java that people (at least those that I know) like a lot, unfortunately its not the open source one: IntelliJ Idea.
If something that has similar features and ease of use could be implemented in OCaml that'd be a good advertisement for the language itself too.
On the other hand integrating the new features with existing editors *first* would IMHO probably be better.

> 
>> Let's call this "editor" ModelOnly (following the common
>> model/view/controller abstraction).
> 
> Certainly one does not exclude the other option!
> 
> I just drew the border of the simple editor, and design requriments for
> the "ModelOnly".
> 
>> I completely agree that there are totally different requirements if you
>> compare the needs of beginners and professionals. However, this is
>> mostly a matter of presentation, and implementation-wise, there is a
>> lot of overlap, and also an editor for beginners would profit from a
>> good model library.
> 
> One could think about different incarnations of the same editor, did
> anybody think about Emacs, beginner mode, with CUA bindings and limited
> access to the functionality just so to make it easily accessible for the
> beginners?

From what I've seen at beginners in other languages they used: (on Linux) Kate,
Emacs (using the menus, not the shortcuts), mcedit, Code::Blocks, Eclipse/Netbeans; Dev-C++ and the various
Visual* stuff on Win32.

Out of those Kate seems to be the easiest to just start using, as it has a terminal too (and it supports plugins/extensions),
but I don't know if / how well it'd work on Win32.
Unfortunately it is the first time I've heard of Geany, haven't seen anyone use it.

Best regards,
--Edwin

Re: AW: AW: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Wojciech Meyer]

Török Edwin <edwin+ml-ocaml@etorok.net> writes:

> Don't forget that the preferred "GUI" is sometimes just a console application.
> I'm using vim to edit files in remote ssh sessions (unless latency makes it impractical), and even
> on the desktop I much prefer the console version: mostly because its
> so easy to put it into the background, do some other tasks (building /
> debugging), then bring back the editor to fix things, and so
> on. For some reason I also find it easier to switch between console tabs in Konsole than between multiple windows.

My pattern is to avoid console as much as possible, and open a buffer if
I need to. So my Emacs is usually a single monolithic session captured
in a tiling window manager, where I edit the code, send e-mails, sometimes
spawn jobs , run top-level, talk on jabber or irc and refine my patches
with magit.

Gnome-terminal is open on a different screen, just in case I find it
more comfortable to use it. (which usually happens at random times at
random days), but must say it that spawning job in terminal is much more
convenient than in Emacs. I also believe that can't live without
terminal on SSH - even though I edit my files exclusively using Tramp.

Probably your workflow is ideally orthogonal to mine, but that proves
the requirement - that such framework should be generic and scalable as
possible to cover many weird cases that tend to happen when people that
use Unix tools. Interesting idea: providing an OCaml plugin to Visual
Studio might bring up whole bunch of F# individuals that wanted to compile to
native code. There is strong move of MS to get towards the native code
instead of .net.

Also, we have some excellent UI console windowing libraries like
lambda-term or zed so maybe perhaps that is the way to go?

At least console encourages to use terminal, and it just works. There
are some famous console UI applications like Midnight Commander used by
many people.

> I agree that the focus should be on functionality, if I see an IDE with features I like my first thought would be:
>  "thats nice, now how do I make that work in Vim?".
> If an OCaml library, or even just a command-line tool is provided that implements feature X independently of the full editor,
> then its a matter of writing some editor-specific scripts to hook it up.
>
> On the other hand care should be taken when advertising the editor for beginners:
>  - if editor lacks feature X, then a beginner might generalize that to
>  "Ocaml is the language without X"

Sadly my response that it often was pointed out in the past - "OCaml is
rubbish does not have a package manager - look at my ruby gems; it just
works.". Well, yes, features and environment just takes equal time and
effort to developing a language itself, and how many years it took to
bring up OCaml to such a state? Look at, how many IDEs are for such
language like C++, and mostly they cut, and that contributes that some
people will think that C++ will be the language of their choice - they
will be scared to run Emacs, but will just approve MS Eula online to
install Visual Studio Express.

>  - will the editor be maintained with new ocaml releases?

OCaml these days  changed rapidly. Therefore having a maintaince
headache with Camlp4 I can imagine it might be an issue.

>  - once the beginner is ready to move to more advanced features, are
> they required to abandon the editor, or will it be customizable with
> plugins?

That's why the basic editor should be very limited, it took 40 years to
bring up Emacs to the current state - surely we don't want to spend another
40 years to come up with new great Emacs for OCaml (only??).

>  - once the beginner is ready to move on to using <his favourite
>  editor>, how can the features of the ocaml editor be accomplished
>  there?

The answer is: if the OCaml is popular enough and the editor of the his
choice is also popular, then might be that we will have a set
intersection, and actually some of these people will write a nice plugin
for they favourite editors. However to do this we'd first need to make
OCaml popular. The real bugs are in people that learn programming, they
tend to be not hampered by the industry and still some their dreams
about the tool they'd like to use in they daily routines. I think it's a
fair chunk of work.

>
> Also are we talking about complete beginners to programming, or
> beginners to OCaml that know other languages already?

We need to distinguish them; Usually the first needs more support, the
second one needs proper evangelising and brain washing + some impressive
project to convince them to switch over.

> I think that having an ocaml-specific editor with all the features people typically want from the IDE
> would not necessarily be bad though, in the sense that it shows whats
> *possible* for an OCaml editor. And it'd be something people can
> easily try out.
> For example Java has an IDE written in Java that people (at least
> those that I know) like a lot, unfortunately its not the open source
> one: IntelliJ Idea.

Yes, I've heard and wanted to mention. The commercial setting is
different I can't see such thing happening in OCaml community, Java
Enterprise is a strong industry and if any language needs strong support
from the IDE than IMHO Java would be placed in the first league.

> If something that has similar features and ease of use could be
> implemented in OCaml that'd be a good advertisement for the language
> itself too.
> On the other hand integrating the new features with existing editors
> *first* would IMHO probably be better.

I agree.

>
> From what I've seen at beginners in other languages they used: (on Linux) Kate,
> Emacs (using the menus, not the shortcuts), mcedit, Code::Blocks, Eclipse/Netbeans; Dev-C++ and the various
> Visual* stuff on Win32.

I didn't know Kate is still alive. Bloodshed Dev-C++ has been around
since day one I tried using C++ on windows.

> Out of those Kate seems to be the easiest to just start using, as it has a terminal too (and it supports plugins/extensions),
> but I don't know if / how well it'd work on Win32.
> Unfortunately it is the first time I've heard of Geany, haven't seen anyone use it.
>
> Best regards,
> --Edwin

--
Wojciech Meyer
http://danmey.org

RE: AW: AW: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Jon Harrop]

> I think the major point we raised here, that we all want the same from the
> editor: syntax highlighting, parsing in the background, invoking tools, editing
> over the network etc.

FWIW I'd put color syntax highlighting and autocompletion (like Intellisense) above all else.

Cheers,
Jon.

-----Original Message-----
From: caml-list-request@inria.fr [mailto:caml-list-request@inria.fr] On Behalf Of Wojciech Meyer
Sent: 13 February 2013 21:17
To: Gerd Stolpmann
Cc: Louis Gesbert; Martin DeMello; caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: Re: AW: AW: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de> writes:

> I can well imagine such a toolkit - basically an editor without user 
> interface. It would just consist of the underlying modules, and would 
> solve all difficult tasks - like incremental indentation, or 
> transparent network file access. Other developers can then pick things 
> up - only parts, or everything - and I'm sure we'll see then a couple 
> of GUIs on top of this, some expressive, some minimalistic, some 
> specializing on certain domains (web, GUI, etc.), some cloning emacs.
> And, as you write, existing editors can be "upgraded" by providing 
> bindings.

I think the major point we raised here, that we all want the same from the
editor: syntax highlighting, parsing in the background, invoking tools, editing over the network etc. However, each of us, have a completely different taste of how we interact with the editor and how we use the GUI. For one person this might be Emacs which wins, other prefer Code::Blocks. What matters here is not to focus on GUI but the features that would be accessible from the different frontends. (which seem to be a little hard, given diversity of the solutions on the market, but perhaps possible)

> Let's call this "editor" ModelOnly (following the common 
> model/view/controller abstraction).

Certainly one does not exclude the other option!

I just drew the border of the simple editor, and design requriments for the "ModelOnly".

> I completely agree that there are totally different requirements if 
> you compare the needs of beginners and professionals. However, this is 
> mostly a matter of presentation, and implementation-wise, there is a 
> lot of overlap, and also an editor for beginners would profit from a 
> good model library.

One could think about different incarnations of the same editor, did anybody think about Emacs, beginner mode, with CUA bindings and limited access to the functionality just so to make it easily accessible for the beginners?

>
> Gerd
>
>>
>> --
>> Wojciech Meyer
>> http://danmey.org
>>
>> PS: tramp is also one of the must have features to me in Emacs.
>>
>> Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de> writes:
>>
>>
>> > Just to make an example: Personally, I'm still sticking to emacs 
>> > (although latest tuareg-mode is error-prone), mainly because it has
>> one
>> > killer feature: Tramp. You need to know that I'm often not building
>> my
>> > programs on the machine I'm sitting at, but I'm remotely logging in
>> to
>> > another machine (often over continents). Tramp is an emacs module 
>> > to edit files remotely via ssh/sftp.
>> Yes, I also require tramp.
>> >
>> > My guess is that there are many other users who would profit from
>> such
>> > a feature. Nevertheless, it is not popping up anywhere else -
>> strange
>> > enough, since we left the "PC" era long ago where everything had to 
>> > happen locally on your own computer. The IDEs seem not to have left 
>> > this era, and in a time where everything moves to the cloud this is 
>> > really anachronistic.
>> >
>> > It is clear to me that many features of IDEs are more difficult to 
>> > implement with such a requirement, as the latency to open files is
>> way
>> > higher. But on my side there is nothing to discuss, as remotely
>> editing
>> > files is more important than anything else.
>> >
>> > Another point from the perspective of a professional: There is 
>> > absolutely no need to integrate build support into the IDE (like 
>> > OCamlEditor tries to do). We have already utilities for this, and
>> these
>> > are scriptable - which is a MUST-HAVE for all professional use
>> (think
>> > of continuous integration, for instance).
>> >
>> > Gerd
>> >
>> >
>> > Am 12.02.2013 12:29:41 schrieb(en) Louis Gesbert:
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> No offence taken :). OCamlEditor indeed looks like a very
>> interesting
>> >> project,
>> >> with lots of features already present. But the scope and project 
>> >> goals are not the same though, so I think ocp-editor still has a 
>> >> place on its
>> own ;
>> >>
>> >> One of our main goals is to make IDE bricks available publicly, so
>> I
>> >> think the
>> >> projects can benefit to one another. I would be glad to borrow 
>> >> some widgets from OCamlEditor, and it could use automatic 
>> >> indentation or better toplevel process interaction.
>> >>
>> >> If the author -- Francesco Tovagliari -- is around here, I would 
>> >> be glad to know how he feels about this ?
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
>> >>
>> >> Le mardi 12 février 2013 00:24:36, Martin DeMello a écrit :
>> >> > Hi Louis,
>> >> >
>> >> > That looks very interesting. Sorry if this seems like a rude
>> >> question;
>> >> > I truly don't mean it that way, but if your editor needs a few
>> >> months
>> >> > of work, why not work on a stripped-down interface for
>> OCamlEditor
>> >> > [http://ocamleditor.forge.ocamlcore.org/] instead? I remember
>> when I
>> >> > was learning web development I enjoyed using Evrsoft's "1st Page"
>> >> IDE,
>> >> > which had modes that would add or remove bits from the interface
>> as
>> >> > you progressed from beginner to power user, and something like
>> that
>> >> > would be very nice to have for OCaml.
>> >> >
>> >> > martin
>> >> >
>> >> > On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Louis Gesbert
>> >> >
>> >> > <louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com> wrote:
>> >> > > OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment
>> >> working
>> >> > > precisely on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor
>> that
>> >> runs
>> >> > > on Linux, OSX and Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment 
>> >> > > but
>> >> already
>> >> > > has code edition and working toplevel interaction (no
>> compilation
>> >> or
>> >> > > project yet).
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient
>> >> features
>> >> > > for beginners and students. If successful, it will then be
>> >> extended to
>> >> > > handle bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration,
>> >> etc.).
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Until then, you may see the project's github page at 
>> >> > > https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)
>> >> > >
>> >> > > --
>> >> > > Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
>> >> > >
>> >> > > Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
>> >> > >> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a
>> >> good
>> >> > >> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and
>> >> trying
>> >> > >> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
>> >> > >>
>> >> > >> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who
>> want
>> >> to
>> >> > >> use them will know how to do it)
>> >> > >> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows
>> and
>> >> OSX,
>> >> > >> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
>> >> > >> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to
>> >> install it
>> >> > >> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently
>> >> present
>> >> > >> and configured (!)
>> >> > >> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support
>> OCaml 4
>> >> > >>
>> >> > >> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and
>> >> Geany won
>> >> > >> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately 
>> >> > >> being
>> >> able to
>> >> > >> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a
>> >> perfect
>> >> > >> beginner-friendly experience.
>> >> > >>
>> >> > >> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting
>> >> Geany as
>> >> > >> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd
>> be
>> >> happy
>> >> > >> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
>> >> > >>
>> >> > >> martin
>> >> > >
>> >> > > --
>> >> > > 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 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
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > 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
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> --
>> 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
>>

--
Wojciech Meyer
http://danmey.org

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Re: AW: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Martin DeMello]

I agree, they are definitely two separate options. Speaking for
myself, as an experienced user there are all sorts of things I want
out of my development environment (starting with vim keybindings and
really good autoindentation), but when I'm learning a language the top
thing I want is one-click compile and run. I don't want to figure out
the build toolchain and how to integrate it into my standard developer
environment until after I've decided whether I want to invest time in
the language itself.

martin

On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 7:41 AM, Wojciech Meyer
<wojciech.meyer@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I think we should stick into two of these options:
>
> - provide a exhaustive framework for supporting editors, with possible
>   bindings everywhere, and let the community to write needed plugs for
>   the existing editors. It's already happened with OCaIDE. Looking at
>   projects like Slime for Common Lisp, our Typerex, it probably requires
>   to act as a client-server application. It's not necessary though,
>   Eclipse for Java is a primary example how excellent can be support
>   from the IDE without listening to a socket. However, the architecture
>   needs to be well thought and it must work across different APIs,
>   Eclipse, VIM, Emacs and other editors I don't know much about.
>   So in summary there are few things to consider:
>
> -- syntax highlighting and indentation - best if that worked across
>    lines of code. This is basic feature most people just need to have to work
>    on Caml code;
> -- navigation and refactoring - with an interactive support of the
>    editor - so refactor one bit and continue to the next or abandon last
>    change, etc;
> -- tooling integration - invocation of the compiler, integration with
>    the toplevel, navigation to auto-generated docs etc;
> -- completion mechanism and decent error recovery - that means we
>    probably can't use OCaml parser as it does not re-cover very well
>    from errors. What we need is to run exact OCaml parser and when it
>    fails fallback to approximate context parser, which will do the error
>    recovery then.
> -- debugging the code with help of IDE.
>
> - the second important idea, is to introduce people that are not (yet)
>   familiar with software engineering as such, and they it's their first
>   encounter with the programming. TryOCaml website does partial job of
>   dragging these people to OCaml world, however it solves very well
>   slightly different problem, it introduces people to OCaml regardless
>   previous exposure to writing code.  Here, I'm talking mostly here
>   about kids that want to write and see games in OCaml, students that
>   are interested in genuine programming but never happen to be
>   interested in tooling or they don't have time for it (or not required
>   because they are not developers) and people that chosen that their
>   first ever programming language would be OCaml.
>
> Now in my measures minimal cost would be to provide something like
> WinOCaml were, in terms of minimal editor that just does very well few
> things: editing and interaction with toplevel, compilation with one
> keystroke, basic syntax highlighting and clever enough indentation
> scheme that does not go on the way. Just forget about fancy features, if
> somebody wants them, then go for the "real editor" like before mentioned
> ones. Just discourage people for being efficient in such environment and
> they will seamlessly consider better environment. I also concur idea
> that we could support cloud editors which boomed these days over the
> web.
>
> So the basic editor -- should be just activation energy for people
> interested in learning OCaml, heard that's brilliant language but don't
> feel yet to get into maze of tooling.
>
> The first aspect - providing enough libraries and context for developing
> the future IDEs in OCaml is also the important one -- that's the
> community who should do it, not anybody else - even the community who
> are not directly related to OCaml -- that's it, think about Eclipse
> written in Java have some very nice C++ support in form of CDT. Think
> about Emacs written in Elisp which has a nice generic support for C++
> and Java in form of CEDET or JDE.
>
> So I understand the confusion here, but I think we should clearly draw
> the line between providing a framework for others to support editing,
> and very simple and domain specific editor for the beginners.
>
> --
> Wojciech Meyer
> http://danmey.org
>
> PS: tramp is also one of the must have features to me in Emacs.
>
> Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de> writes:
>
>
>> Just to make an example: Personally, I'm still sticking to emacs
>> (although latest tuareg-mode is error-prone), mainly because it has one
>> killer feature: Tramp. You need to know that I'm often not building my
>> programs on the machine I'm sitting at, but I'm remotely logging in to
>> another machine (often over continents). Tramp is an emacs module to
>> edit files remotely via ssh/sftp.
> Yes, I also require tramp.
>>
>> My guess is that there are many other users who would profit from such
>> a feature. Nevertheless, it is not popping up anywhere else - strange
>> enough, since we left the "PC" era long ago where everything had to
>> happen locally on your own computer. The IDEs seem not to have left
>> this era, and in a time where everything moves to the cloud this is
>> really anachronistic.
>>
>> It is clear to me that many features of IDEs are more difficult to
>> implement with such a requirement, as the latency to open files is way
>> higher. But on my side there is nothing to discuss, as remotely editing
>> files is more important than anything else.
>>
>> Another point from the perspective of a professional: There is
>> absolutely no need to integrate build support into the IDE (like
>> OCamlEditor tries to do). We have already utilities for this, and these
>> are scriptable - which is a MUST-HAVE for all professional use (think
>> of continuous integration, for instance).
>>
>> Gerd
>>
>>
>> Am 12.02.2013 12:29:41 schrieb(en) Louis Gesbert:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> No offence taken :). OCamlEditor indeed looks like a very interesting
>>> project,
>>> with lots of features already present. But the scope and project
>>> goals are not
>>> the same though, so I think ocp-editor still has a place on its own ;
>>>
>>> One of our main goals is to make IDE bricks available publicly, so I
>>> think the
>>> projects can benefit to one another. I would be glad to borrow some
>>> widgets from
>>> OCamlEditor, and it could use automatic indentation or better
>>> toplevel process
>>> interaction.
>>>
>>> If the author -- Francesco Tovagliari -- is around here, I would be
>>> glad to know
>>> how he feels about this ?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
>>>
>>> Le mardi 12 février 2013 00:24:36, Martin DeMello a écrit :
>>> > Hi Louis,
>>> >
>>> > That looks very interesting. Sorry if this seems like a rude
>>> question;
>>> > I truly don't mean it that way, but if your editor needs a few
>>> months
>>> > of work, why not work on a stripped-down interface for OCamlEditor
>>> > [http://ocamleditor.forge.ocamlcore.org/] instead? I remember when I
>>> > was learning web development I enjoyed using Evrsoft's "1st Page"
>>> IDE,
>>> > which had modes that would add or remove bits from the interface as
>>> > you progressed from beginner to power user, and something like that
>>> > would be very nice to have for OCaml.
>>> >
>>> > martin
>>> >
>>> > On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Louis Gesbert
>>> >
>>> > <louis.gesbert@ocamlpro.com> wrote:
>>> > > OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment
>>> working
>>> > > precisely on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor that
>>> runs
>>> > > on Linux, OSX and Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment but
>>> already
>>> > > has code edition and working toplevel interaction (no compilation
>>> or
>>> > > project yet).
>>> > >
>>> > > Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient
>>> features
>>> > > for beginners and students. If successful, it will then be
>>> extended to
>>> > > handle bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration,
>>> etc.).
>>> > >
>>> > > Until then, you may see the project's github page at
>>> > > https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)
>>> > >
>>> > > --
>>> > > Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro
>>> > >
>>> > > Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
>>> > >> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a
>>> good
>>> > >> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and
>>> trying
>>> > >> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
>>> > >>
>>> > >> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who want
>>> to
>>> > >> use them will know how to do it)
>>> > >> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows and
>>> OSX,
>>> > >> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
>>> > >> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to
>>> install it
>>> > >> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently
>>> present
>>> > >> and configured (!)
>>> > >> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support OCaml 4
>>> > >>
>>> > >> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and
>>> Geany won
>>> > >> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being
>>> able to
>>> > >> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a
>>> perfect
>>> > >> beginner-friendly experience.
>>> > >>
>>> > >> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting
>>> Geany as
>>> > >> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd be
>>> happy
>>> > >> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
>>> > >>
>>> > >> martin
>>> > >
>>> > > --
>>> > > 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 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
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> 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
>> ------------------------------------------------------------

RE: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

[Jon Harrop]

I tried to do something similar once but the experience of trying to write
even the simplest GUI app using OCaml was horrific using Emacs and I gave
up. In contrast, I often develop GUI apps using F# and it is very easy. The
main difference is having an IDE (Visual Studio) with Intellisense so you
can explore APIs interactively from the editor without having to go back and
forth between Emacs and OCamlBrowser (a nice tool but completely
unintegrated).

So this is a chicken and egg problem: writing GUI apps is much harder in
OCaml than it could be with a GUI app to help you write GUI apps in OCaml.

I do think this is the right problem to be attacking though. OCaml could be
a fantastic language for GUI development thanks to polymorphic variants and
so on. The marriage of a metalanguage with good GUI support is incredibly
powerful.

Cheers,
Jon.

-----Original Message-----
From: caml-list-request@inria.fr [mailto:caml-list-request@inria.fr] On
Behalf Of Louis Gesbert
Sent: 11 February 2013 11:41
To: caml-list@inria.fr
Subject: Re: [Caml-list] geany as an ocaml ide

OCaml is definitely lacking in this area; I am at the moment working
precisely on solving this issue, with a dedicated Gtk editor that runs on
Linux, OSX and Windows. It is pretty basic at the moment but already has
code edition and working toplevel interaction (no compilation or project
yet).

Release is intended in a few months from now, with sufficient features for
beginners and students. If successful, it will then be extended to handle
bigger projects (multi-file, build system integration, etc.).

Until then, you may see the project's github page at
https://github.com/OCamlPro/ocp-edit-simple (name temporary)

--
Louis Gesbert, OCamlPro

Le Monday 11 February 2013 01:49:41, Martin DeMello a écrit :
> I spent some time last night going through all the "what is a good
> (beginner's) ide for ocaml?" threads I could find online, and trying 
> out the various options suggested. I ruled out the following:
> 
> * vim, emacs and eclipse (not beginner-friendly; people who want to 
> use them will know how to do it)
> * anything that did not provide a binary install for Windows and OSX, 
> and wasn't a simple configure/make/make install on linux
> * anything that needed fiddling with config files just to install it
> * anything that needed the OCaml sources to be independently present 
> and configured (!)
> * anything that was abandoned, or didn't seem to support OCaml 4
> 
> I was left with Geany and Komodo Edit as possibilities, and Geany won 
> out by letting me open up a test.ml file and immediately being able to 
> find and run the OCaml compiler. At least on Linux, it was a perfect 
> beginner-friendly experience.
> 
> So what do people think about ocaml.org officially promoting Geany as 
> the answer to "I'm learning OCaml; what is a good IDE?"? I'd be happy 
> to write up a page on it and contribute it.
> 
> martin

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