From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id UAA24096; Tue, 1 Jul 2003 20:29:13 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA23776 for ; Tue, 1 Jul 2003 20:29:12 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from mz2.forethought.net (mzpi4.forethought.net [216.241.36.13]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id h61ITAj14640 for ; Tue, 1 Jul 2003 20:29:11 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from [216.241.35.41] (helo=swordfish) by mz2.forethought.net with esmtp (Exim 4.14) id 19XPsL-0001EG-Db for caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr; Tue, 01 Jul 2003 12:29:09 -0600 Received: from matt by swordfish with local (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19XPsM-0004EG-00 for ; Tue, 01 Jul 2003 12:29:10 -0600 Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2003 12:29:10 -0600 From: Matt Gushee To: caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Subject: Ledit (was Re: [Caml-list] how to use a module) Message-ID: <20030701182910.GP4225@swordfish> Reply-To: Matt Gushee Mail-Followup-To: caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr References: <004d01c33f46$2f16f480$fdbf0950@zofo> <20030701014954.GN4225@swordfish> <87el1aedv5.dlv@wanadoo.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87el1aedv5.dlv@wanadoo.fr> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.27i X-Spam: no; 0.00; gushee:01 mgushee:01 havenrock:01 ledit:01 caml-list:01 bazar-ocaml:01 instructor:01 python:01 admittedly:01 ocaml's:01 elitist:01 englewood:01 manure:01 ignores:01 --lao:01 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk On Tue, Jul 01, 2003 at 12:32:46PM +0200, Remi Vanicat wrote: > Matt Gushee writes: > > > (Note to OCaml team: can we *please* get some kind of > > history-editing functionality in the toplevel? I know there are > > ledit is there for this. You can found it in the ocaml bazaar : > http://caml.inria.fr/distrib/bazar-ocaml/ Okay, then, I have some questions about ledit: How do you use it? I have actually tried ledit 2 or 3 times, but if I invoke the 'ledit' executable that is created, e.g. $ ./ledit I get ... something ... some sort of shell-like environment, I guess. But all it does is echo whatever I type. And when I read your post, I downloaded it again to be sure, but the same thing happened again. I also tried making a custom toplevel with ledit, but the result seems to be identical to the plain ledit executable. Is there any objection in principle to including ledit with the main OCaml distribution? It needn't be in the default configuration, but if someone could get the OCaml source, then do ./configure -with-ledit make all make opt make install and have a ledit-enabled toplevel, wouldn't that be a good thing? If not, why not? I think that if a language is going to have an interactive programming environment, it should be pleasant to work with. And unless you are a perfect typist, the lack of history editing makes the OCaml toplevel very unpleasant to work with. Now for me, and probably for most people on this list, that's just an annoyance. But what would it mean for beginning programmers who might encounter OCaml without having the background to understand why it's so cool? Suppose a programming instructor decides to teach Python and OCaml ... some students might decide they like Python and not OCaml because Python is easy to work with interactively and OCaml isn't. Admittedly, that's kind of a silly reason, but the fact that someone starts doing something for a silly reason doesn't mean that they will always be silly about it. So my point is, a toplevel with history editing could help OCaml's popularity. And unless you take the elitist view that "OCaml is for those with the intelligence and/or background to handle it," that is a desirable result, isn't it? -- Matt Gushee When a nation follows the Way, Englewood, Colorado, USA Horses bear manure through mgushee@havenrock.com its fields; http://www.havenrock.com/ When a nation ignores the Way, Horses bear soldiers through its streets. --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.) ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners