Re: more ideas (Re: [Caml-list] how could the community help with Oasis-DB;) towards a CPAN for OCaml?

[Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de>]

Am Mittwoch, den 14.12.2011, 15:55 +0100 schrieb oliver:
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 01:14:57PM +0100, Gerd Stolpmann wrote:
> > Am Dienstag, den 13.12.2011, 21:22 +0100 schrieb oliver:
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > 
> > > I again want to mention R.
> > > 
> > > The installation procdure for users is very easy.
> > > What I also like there, is that the documentation
> > > includes references to books, which explain the algorithms
> > > or other background information.
> > > Maybe thats too much of what is needed for OCaml.
> > > 
> > > But it's what I do like there.
> > > 
> > > Also R-packages necessarily need to be documented,
> > > have a manpage / package description.
> > > 
> > > Not sure if this is necessary with OCaml stuff,
> > > because *.mli files are there, and ocamlc -i could
> > > print the interfaces of the modules, if nothing else is there
> > > to rely on.
> > > But maybe these kinds of minimalistic documentation-generation
> > > could be created automatically by the installing tools.
> > > 
> > > Nicely printed html-docs for interfaces are very helpful.
> > > 
> > > And also nice would be, to have such nicely printed documentation
> > > also available at the server, even before downloading any packages.
> > > So, browsing a package documentation online could be done
> > > before downloading the package.
> > 
> > docs.camlcity.org
> [...]
> 
> Yes, I see.
> There are these nice htmlized-docs.
> 
> But I meant that this kind of docs also should also be on
> a CPAN-like server for OCaml.
> So every package that is available there should also be
> documented in this way.

Yes, it's a third party server. What's the problem?

My thinking here is different: We should lower the barriers for packages
as far as possible. We are not in the position of CPAN who can reject
packages not conforming to a relatively high standard.

docs.camlcity.org does the best in this situation: If there is a manual,
you can look at this. But if not, there is at least a pretty-printed
interface, and you can search these interfaces.

Gerd

> Ciao,
>   Oliver
>