From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.83]) by sympa.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTPS id AAA8A7EE51 for ; Wed, 29 May 2013 04:25:53 +0200 (CEST) Received-SPF: None (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of berenger@riken.jp) identity=pra; client-ip=134.160.33.176; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="berenger@riken.jp"; x-sender="berenger@riken.jp"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible Received-SPF: Pass (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: domain of berenger@riken.jp designates 134.160.33.176 as permitted sender) identity=mailfrom; client-ip=134.160.33.176; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="berenger@riken.jp"; x-sender="berenger@riken.jp"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible; x-record-type="v=spf1" Received-SPF: Pass (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: domain of postmaster@postman.riken.jp designates 134.160.33.176 as permitted sender) identity=helo; client-ip=134.160.33.176; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="berenger@riken.jp"; x-sender="postmaster@postman.riken.jp"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible; x-record-type="v=spf1" X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: Ag4BABRmpVGGoCGwfGdsb2JhbABZgzkBgzq+doEbDgEBCxYFPoIjAQEFIxU1CxELGAICBRYLAgIJAwIBAgFFEwgBAYgJDKk/kgOBJowqgVQWgiuBEwOJHY4egSmEdYYCiD4 X-IPAS-Result: Ag4BABRmpVGGoCGwfGdsb2JhbABZgzkBgzq+doEbDgEBCxYFPoIjAQEFIxU1CxELGAICBRYLAgIJAwIBAgFFEwgBAYgJDKk/kgOBJowqgVQWgiuBEwOJHY4egSmEdYYCiD4 X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.87,762,1363129200"; d="scan'208";a="19373026" Received: from postman4.riken.jp (HELO postman.riken.jp) ([134.160.33.176]) by mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP; 29 May 2013 04:25:51 +0200 Received: from postman.riken.jp (postman4.riken.jp [127.0.0.1]) by postman.riken.jp (Postfix) with SMTP id 3132C8280CD for ; Wed, 29 May 2013 11:25:49 +0900 (JST) Received: from [172.27.98.103] (rikad98.riken.jp [134.160.214.98]) by postman.riken.jp (Postfix) with ESMTPA id 598CD7F8040 for ; Wed, 29 May 2013 11:25:48 +0900 (JST) Message-ID: <51A5672C.9010403@riken.jp> Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 11:25:48 +0900 From: Francois Berenger User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130510 Thunderbird/17.0.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: caml-list@inria.fr References: <20130523235355.GI6510@siouxsie> <20130526150008.GA2014@siouxsie> <20130526234911.41866xca7wgoirfb@webmail.in-berlin.de> <51A30E01.5070300@freenet.de> <20130527185345.e01a7733ac652f89f4e400f7@mega-nerd.com> <51A353BE.5030009@freenet.de> <51A40590.4090501@riken.jp> <51A4FC9B.4040004@freenet.de> In-Reply-To: <51A4FC9B.4040004@freenet.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-PMX-Version: 6.0.0.2142326, Antispam-Engine: 2.7.2.2107409, Antispam-Data: 2013.5.29.21518 Subject: Re: Problems to get larger user base ... (Re: [Caml-list] OCaml's variables) On 05/29/2013 03:51 AM, Mr. Herr wrote: > Am 28.05.2013 03:17, schrieb Francois Berenger: >> On 05/27/2013 09:38 PM, Mr. Herr wrote: >>> >>> Am 27.05.2013 10:53, schrieb Erik de Castro Lopo: >>>> Mr. Herr wrote: >>>>> I think the biggest problem is you generally can only learn FP and/or Ocaml at >>>>> university, because: >>>>> >>>>> The FP terminology is at first (and a long time after starting learning it), >>>>> without >>>>> a teacher, not understandable. >>>> Sorry, that's simply not true. >>>> >>>> I studied my last univeristy course in 1992. I picked up Ocaml in 2004 >>>> and Haskell in 2008. Before Ocaml, the only functional language I had >>>> used was scheme in the late 1980s. >>> >>> Scheme is terribly functional, so to say, and is absolutely immerged in the Lispy >>> slang. >>> All your knowlegde in C, Java, PHP, Assembler, Tcl/Tk, Pascal ... will not help you >>> there. >>> >>> I started as an IBM /370 Systems Admin in the late nineties, and it took me months of >>> reading in 2012 >>> to get some understanding about what the heck the scheme people are talking about. >>> >>> Scheme is even a better example for the problems non university learners encounter, >>> than Ocaml, IMO. >> >> A very good book on scheme (which is also quite a deep introduction to computer >> science if you read the whole thing in fact): >> >> "structure and interpretation of computer programs" >> >> http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html >> > Yes, a good book. The author takes care to only use terms and features he explained > before. I started working through it, then I thought there must be an easier way to > write some system admin scripts like checking if IPv6 is functional, ssh-agent has > identities, ... There is the scheme shell for sysadmin tasks: scsh. Packages are available on most distros. There is also a partial OCaml clone: http://pauillac.inria.fr/cash/ I never used any of them, just know they exist. As a student, I was amazed by the scsh paper. I think it was an ICFP one. I will come back to the book. > > I find for myself Ocaml is indeed easier to start with than Scheme for a FP beginner. > > But this is the point: do we need computer science to start with functional programming? I wish I would have started with it. Regards, F.