Re: Problems to get larger user base ... (Re: [Caml-list] OCaml's variables)

[Norman Hardy <norm@cap-lore.com>]

On 2013 May 27, at 20:40 , Francois Berenger <berenger@riken.jp> wrote:

> Honestly, I think "Part I An introduction to OCaml"
> from "The OCaml system release 4.00
> Documentation and user’s manual"
> at
> http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/
> is enough for a start.

Very good indeed; it sufficed for me to write several useful programs

> I think you can even skip the Objects chapter in there.
> And that's only pages 9 to 33 in the PDF version of the document.

Agreed again; I am not sure of fundamental advantages of objects that you can't get from GADTs.
But that brings me to the following text in ( http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/language.html ):

… the typing rules have been left out, by lack of the mathematical framework required to express them, while they are definitely part of a full formal definition of the language ...

Someone contemplating investing the attention of a programming team will wonder where the rest of the manual is.
A pointer would suffice; if there is nothing on the web to point to we may have part of an answer to the question about the larger user base.
Such a team needs at least one "language lawyer" I have found.
Must the typing rules be expressed formally?

Even a specification of a powerful subset of OCaml would be possible even if it did not encompass every possible correct program.
A step up would specify the meaning of every program that the compiler accepted.