[Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Andrej Bauer]

I would like to report on a recent experience of a student of mine who
is starting to learn Ocaml. His first taks was to get Ocaml installed
on his Windows 7. The student previously had no trouble installing
Java, Eclipse, erlang, and an erlang plugin for Eclipse.

1. He tried to install with the binary installer for Windows. Norton
Antivirus told him the installer has too low a reputation and deleted
it.
2. He installed the source, which meant he just unpacked it someplace.
3. He installed one of the Ocaml plugins for Eclipse, I think it was
the fpeclipse one.
4. The plugin complained that it can't find Ocaml, even though he told
it where he unpacked the source.

Then I came in. I realized he just unpacked the source, asked him if
he tried the binary installer, and he told me the antivirus story. So
we went on:

5. We deleted the source.
6. We installed Mingw.
7. We disabled Norton Antivirus and installed Ocaml with the binary installer.
8. Eclipse stopped working.
9. I diagoned the problem relatively quickly: the Ocaml installer or
maybe MinGW destroyed the PATH environment variable.
10. We spent some time restoring PATH to a correct value.
11. We deleted the Eclipse plugins because they didn't work somehow.
12. We installed OcaIDE into Eclipse.
13. OcaIDE told us it won't work without Cygwin.
14. We installed Cygwin, but did not know what packages OcaIDE wanted,
so we just installed whatever was turned on by default.
15. I felt stupid for having installed Mingw in step 5, now that we had Cygwin.
16. We followed the video tutorial for OcaIDE to create a HelloWorld project.
17. OcaIDE did not work because there was some error in some XML file.
18. I told the student to check forums, check that OcaIDE works with
Eclipse 3.7, and to generally pray to the gods of software.

I am waiting for him to come back.

Does it really have to be that hard?

It's not a stupid student, you know. And he has the right to use
Eclipse, so don't tell me he should learn Emacs. Emacs is for old
people like you and me.

With kind regards,

Andrej

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Jonathan Protzenko]

Hi,

On Tue 15 Nov 2011 10:43:39 AM CET, Andrej Bauer wrote:
> I would like to report on a recent experience of a student of mine who
> is starting to learn Ocaml. His first taks was to get Ocaml installed
> on his Windows 7. The student previously had no trouble installing
> Java, Eclipse, erlang, and an erlang plugin for Eclipse.
>
> 1. He tried to install with the binary installer for Windows. Norton
> Antivirus told him the installer has too low a reputation and deleted
> it.
So that looks like the major pain point. Any advice on how to make sure 
the installer is Norton-compliant?
> 2. He installed the source, which meant he just unpacked it someplace.
> 3. He installed one of the Ocaml plugins for Eclipse, I think it was
> the fpeclipse one.
> 4. The plugin complained that it can't find Ocaml, even though he told
> it where he unpacked the source.
>
> Then I came in. I realized he just unpacked the source, asked him if
> he tried the binary installer, and he told me the antivirus story. So
> we went on:
>
> 5. We deleted the source.
> 6. We installed Mingw.
> 7. We disabled Norton Antivirus and installed Ocaml with the binary installer.
> 8. Eclipse stopped working.
> 9. I diagoned the problem relatively quickly: the Ocaml installer or
> maybe MinGW destroyed the PATH environment variable.
> 10. We spent some time restoring PATH to a correct value.
I've had reports about that, I'm going to build a new version of the 
installer that hopefully doesn't have this issue. Was the PATH really long?

jonathan

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[ivan chollet]

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Norton is a notorious piece of malware and has little to do on a student
machine.


On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Jonathan Protzenko <
jonathan.protzenko@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
> On Tue 15 Nov 2011 10:43:39 AM CET, Andrej Bauer wrote:
>
>> I would like to report on a recent experience of a student of mine who
>> is starting to learn Ocaml. His first taks was to get Ocaml installed
>> on his Windows 7. The student previously had no trouble installing
>> Java, Eclipse, erlang, and an erlang plugin for Eclipse.
>>
>> 1. He tried to install with the binary installer for Windows. Norton
>> Antivirus told him the installer has too low a reputation and deleted
>> it.
>>
> So that looks like the major pain point. Any advice on how to make sure
> the installer is Norton-compliant?
>
>  2. He installed the source, which meant he just unpacked it someplace.
>> 3. He installed one of the Ocaml plugins for Eclipse, I think it was
>> the fpeclipse one.
>> 4. The plugin complained that it can't find Ocaml, even though he told
>> it where he unpacked the source.
>>
>> Then I came in. I realized he just unpacked the source, asked him if
>> he tried the binary installer, and he told me the antivirus story. So
>> we went on:
>>
>> 5. We deleted the source.
>> 6. We installed Mingw.
>> 7. We disabled Norton Antivirus and installed Ocaml with the binary
>> installer.
>> 8. Eclipse stopped working.
>> 9. I diagoned the problem relatively quickly: the Ocaml installer or
>> maybe MinGW destroyed the PATH environment variable.
>> 10. We spent some time restoring PATH to a correct value.
>>
> I've had reports about that, I'm going to build a new version of the
> installer that hopefully doesn't have this issue. Was the PATH really long?
>
> jonathan
>
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/**wws/info/caml-list<https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/caml-list>
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/**ocaml_beginners<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners>
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-**bugs<http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs>
>
>

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Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Andrej Bauer]

> Norton is a notorious piece of malware and has little to do on a student
> machine.

I was shocked to learn that you cannot set it so that it only warns
about suspicous files. It actually instists on deleting them! I asked
my student what Norton will do with his Ph.D. dissertation if it is
judged to have too low a reputation, and he just faintly smiled. I
will try to get his boss to buy him a Mac.

With kind regards,

Andrej

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Andrej Bauer]

Switching to a different operating system, or running a different
operating system in a virtual machine is NOT the most obvious solution
to normal people (everyone on this mailing list excluded). While I
agree with what Dario says in principle, I am convinced that people
aren't that keen on using Gnome/GTK gui inside Virtual box running on
a Windows 7.

Realistically, there is just no easy way to install Ocaml on Windows
from what I've learned.

With kind regards,

Andrej

On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 4:28 PM, Dario Teixeira <darioteixeira@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>> I was shocked to learn that you cannot set it so that it only warns
>
>> about suspicous files. It actually instists on deleting them! I asked
>> my student what Norton will do with his Ph.D. dissertation if it is
>> judged to have too low a reputation, and he just faintly smiled. I
>> will try to get his boss to buy him a Mac.
>
> But if switching to a Mac is a solution on the table, that means that your
> student does not actually need OCaml running on Windows.  What they
> need is OCaml, and they just happen to be using Windows as their OS.
> However, if this is the case, then it seems you did pick the most convoluted
> approach.  As others have mentioned, why not just install a free-as-in-beer
> and easy to use virtualisation software like Virtualbox and use it to run a Linux
> distro where OCaml is just an apt-get away?
>
> Mind you, I'm not saying you don't have a point regarding the complexity of
> installing OCaml on Windows (I wouldn't know).  Nevertheless, it does strike me
> that you are bending over backwards to avoid what is the most straightforward
> solution in these cases: run OCaml in a Linux distro.
>
> Cheers,
> Dario Teixeira
>

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Dmitry Grebeniuk]

Hello.

> Realistically, there is just no easy way to install Ocaml on Windows
> from what I've learned.

  Can ever exist any easier way than to download a windows
installer, run it, follow the usual "next->next->next->finish"
procedure and use OCaml with findlib, oasis and many
useful libraries contained in the overbld package?

  If this way does exist, can you please tell me, what it is?
Except a strong telepathic desire "I want OCaml
on this windows box, install it somehow!", please.


  (of course, overbld works on unix too, I use it on some
linux distributions that does not provide the packages
I need, and it's easier to maintain a specified set of
software for all OSes I use than to require bugfixes
for all OCaml packages on every platform.
The "real work" requires bugs to be fixed as soon
as possible, and it's easier to fix bugs with simple
patches right now (hour/day), than to talk with all
maintainers of all OS packages/ports (days...),
and then let them talk with upstream (more days...),
then waiting for the upstream fix (weeks...), then
waiting for new package version in OS
(weeks/months...).  Even in the ideal conditions,
it tooks at least 2..10 days, it's unacceptable for
some kinds of OCaml developement.)

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Stéphane Glondu]

Le 16/11/2011 00:19, Dmitry Grebeniuk a écrit :
> [...] it's easier to maintain a specified set of
> software for all OSes I use than to require bugfixes
> for all OCaml packages on every platform.
> The "real work" requires bugs to be fixed as soon
> as possible, and it's easier to fix bugs with simple
> patches right now (hour/day), than to talk with all
> maintainers of all OS packages/ports (days...),
> and then let them talk with upstream (more days...),
> then waiting for the upstream fix (weeks...), then
> waiting for new package version in OS
> (weeks/months...).  Even in the ideal conditions,
> it tooks at least 2..10 days, it's unacceptable for
> some kinds of OCaml developement.)

Your singling out of "OS packages/ports" here is misleading. Your whole
paragraph applies to all software distributions as well, be it OS-level,
domain-specific or a single project, and including your own: a user of
your software will be subject to the same frustration that you are
describing here with "OS packages/ports"... even (and I would even say,
especially) if you are upstream.

-- 
Stéphane

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[rixed]

-[ Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 11:22:54PM +0100, Andrej Bauer ]----
> Realistically, there is just no easy way to install Ocaml on Windows
> from what I've learned.

You were out of luck.
I tried a windows install some months ago since I had the
opportunity to use a window for some days (was a v7 I guess)
and despite my complete ignorance of this system I managed
to get godi installed in N steps: first cygwin, which I
recalled was the first thing to install on windows, then some
dependencies, then godi. I do not remember the details because
it went quite smoothly.
So, this is not that bad.
Maybe you should give it another try, starting from cygwin?

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Komtanoo Pinpimai]

The easiest solution for your situation as of right now would be
making a vm image that has everything installed, ocaml, eclipse,
ocaide etc. and distribute it to everybody.

On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Andrej Bauer <andrej.bauer@andrej.com> wrote:
> Switching to a different operating system, or running a different
> operating system in a virtual machine is NOT the most obvious solution
> to normal people (everyone on this mailing list excluded). While I
> agree with what Dario says in principle, I am convinced that people
> aren't that keen on using Gnome/GTK gui inside Virtual box running on
> a Windows 7.
>
> Realistically, there is just no easy way to install Ocaml on Windows
> from what I've learned.
>
> With kind regards,
>
> Andrej
>
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 4:28 PM, Dario Teixeira <darioteixeira@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>> I was shocked to learn that you cannot set it so that it only warns
>>
>>> about suspicous files. It actually instists on deleting them! I asked
>>> my student what Norton will do with his Ph.D. dissertation if it is
>>> judged to have too low a reputation, and he just faintly smiled. I
>>> will try to get his boss to buy him a Mac.
>>
>> But if switching to a Mac is a solution on the table, that means that your
>> student does not actually need OCaml running on Windows.  What they
>> need is OCaml, and they just happen to be using Windows as their OS.
>> However, if this is the case, then it seems you did pick the most convoluted
>> approach.  As others have mentioned, why not just install a free-as-in-beer
>> and easy to use virtualisation software like Virtualbox and use it to run a Linux
>> distro where OCaml is just an apt-get away?
>>
>> Mind you, I'm not saying you don't have a point regarding the complexity of
>> installing OCaml on Windows (I wouldn't know).  Nevertheless, it does strike me
>> that you are bending over backwards to avoid what is the most straightforward
>> solution in these cases: run OCaml in a Linux distro.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Dario Teixeira
>>
>
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/caml-list
> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
>
>



-- 
In accordance with U.S. Treasury regulations, if this message contains
advice concerning one or more Federal tax issues, it is not a formal
legal opinion and may not be used by any person for the avoidance of
Federal tax penalties.

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Anthony Tavener]

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I saw this as a "user experience report" (as stated), not really asking for
a solution.

The number of different suggestions for how to "install" OCaml has been
quite telling... this is similar to the confusion I find most times I look
for existing libraries: multiple options for similar things with no good
way to tell whats applicable without actually trying them.

People are working on pieces of the "OCaml experience" which are in this
report. I figured the original post was a broadcast in hopes the
appropriate people might glean hints from a fresh user's run through the
rat-maze. If the Norton AV issue is known, and the solution (which I can
agree with) is: kill Norton AV, then maybe some warning for Windows users,
at the site of the binary installer, that this is a known problem and what
the solution is? (Mind you, some people won't have such control over the
machine and have no option but running the local antivirus.) Also, I can
agree that running Linux is an excellent choice... but really, I'm fine
with most of the world running other OS's. Linux becomes like the others
the more widespread it's adoption.

I understand a lot of work has been done to simplify installation, but
sometimes people hit an edge case which sends them spinning into a
nosedive. Ideally a smooth landing can be had regardless of weather
conditions. Some of those edge cases will be found in the wild, by users.

Just my take on it, :)

 Tony



On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 6:44 AM, Komtanoo Pinpimai <romerun@gmail.com>wrote:

> The easiest solution for your situation as of right now would be
> making a vm image that has everything installed, ocaml, eclipse,
> ocaide etc. and distribute it to everybody.
>
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Andrej Bauer <andrej.bauer@andrej.com>
> wrote:
> > Switching to a different operating system, or running a different
> > operating system in a virtual machine is NOT the most obvious solution
> > to normal people (everyone on this mailing list excluded). While I
> > agree with what Dario says in principle, I am convinced that people
> > aren't that keen on using Gnome/GTK gui inside Virtual box running on
> > a Windows 7.
> >
> > Realistically, there is just no easy way to install Ocaml on Windows
> > from what I've learned.
> >
> > With kind regards,
> >
> > Andrej
> >
> > On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 4:28 PM, Dario Teixeira <darioteixeira@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >>> I was shocked to learn that you cannot set it so that it only warns
> >>
> >>> about suspicous files. It actually instists on deleting them! I asked
> >>> my student what Norton will do with his Ph.D. dissertation if it is
> >>> judged to have too low a reputation, and he just faintly smiled. I
> >>> will try to get his boss to buy him a Mac.
> >>
> >> But if switching to a Mac is a solution on the table, that means that
> your
> >> student does not actually need OCaml running on Windows.  What they
> >> need is OCaml, and they just happen to be using Windows as their OS.
> >> However, if this is the case, then it seems you did pick the most
> convoluted
> >> approach.  As others have mentioned, why not just install a
> free-as-in-beer
> >> and easy to use virtualisation software like Virtualbox and use it to
> run a Linux
> >> distro where OCaml is just an apt-get away?
> >>
> >> Mind you, I'm not saying you don't have a point regarding the
> complexity of
> >> installing OCaml on Windows (I wouldn't know).  Nevertheless, it does
> strike me
> >> that you are bending over backwards to avoid what is the most
> straightforward
> >> solution in these cases: run OCaml in a Linux distro.
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> Dario Teixeira
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> > https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/caml-list
> > Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners
> > Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> In accordance with U.S. Treasury regulations, if this message contains
> advice concerning one or more Federal tax issues, it is not a formal
> legal opinion and may not be used by any person for the avoidance of
> Federal tax penalties.
>
>
> --
> Caml-list mailing list.  Subscription management and archives:
> https://sympa-roc.inria.fr/wws/info/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] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Fabrice Le Fessant]

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> I am waiting for him to come back.
> 
> Does it really have to be that hard?
> 
> It's not a stupid student, you know. And he has the right to use
> Eclipse, so don't tell me he should learn Emacs. Emacs is for old
> people like you and me.

I completely agree that it does not have to be that hard.

On the bright side, we are currently working hard on improving the
Eclipse support for OCaml, and we should be able to release an improved
plugin in a few months.

We also plan to release Windows installers for the next versions of
OCaml, to continue the great work started by Jonathan Protzenko.

--Fabrice

[-- Attachment #2: fabrice_le_fessant.vcf --]
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fn:Fabrice LE FESSANT
n:LE FESSANT;Fabrice
org:INRIA Saclay -- Ile-de-France;P2P & OCaml
adr;quoted-printable:;;Parc Orsay Universit=C3=A9 ;Orsay CEDEX;;91893;France
email;internet:fabrice.le_fessant@inria.fr
title;quoted-printable:Charg=C3=A9 de Recherche
tel;work:+33 1 74 85 42 14
tel;fax:+33 1 74 85 42 49 
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Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Andrej Bauer]

> I completely agree that it does not have to be that hard.
>
> On the bright side, we are currently working hard on improving the
> Eclipse support for OCaml, and we should be able to release an improved
> plugin in a few months.
>
> We also plan to release Windows installers for the next versions of
> OCaml, to continue the great work started by Jonathan Protzenko.

Yes, please don't take my report as whining (only), but just as a user
experience report, to see how things go wrong.

I think it is particularly hard to get things right because there is
no single place which describes the correct procedure. Some people
will start with the Eclipse plugin and won't realize they need to
install Ocaml separately. Some people will install Ocaml, but won't
read instructions and won't install Mingw (like my student).

Suppose you do it the logical way:

1. Install Ocaml.
2. Install OcaIDE.

Then you'll still end up installing Mingw and later Cygwin, when
Cygwin with Mingw selected was all that was needed.

The Ocaml web site, or wherever Google sends people who type in
"install ocaml",  should have _unambigious_ set of instructions. No
ifs and thens and "Level 1" and "Level 2", and "source code or binary
installer" and "you need Mingw but you don't really because you can
have Microsoft stuff as well, and if you want 64-bit then Mingw is no
good, and there will be further surprises when you get to OcaIDE, we
lied about Mingw and Microsoft stuff, you will need cygwin anyhow,
etc."

People expect:
1. Install these prerequisites.
2. Install this stuff.
3. Install that stuff.
4. It's working.
5. Somewhere at the bottom of the instructions there is a link to
"alternative ways of installing" and "troubleshooting".

If you make them decide whether they want Mingw or Microsoft right at
the beginning, it's already a lost battle. If you list installation
from source code before you list the binary installer, that's a big
mistake. People who want and know how to install from source will find
the source code even if you hide it from them. The other 99% will just
get confused.

A good example is how Linux distributions have evolved from "it takes
a week to install Linux" to "burn this CD and reboot". They used to
list 27 kernel images with and without drivers and with and without X
windows etc, and they made the user select the right one. Now they're
reduced to "Intel 32", "Intel 64" and something else I never pay
attention to. We're somewhere in the "it takes a week to install
Ocaml" era, I am afraid.

I just realized that the documentation for OcaIDE failed to install,
aparently the relevant stuff could not be downloaded. We had to
disable that. So that's 19 steps.

With kind regards,

Andrej

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Jonathan Protzenko]

On 11/15/2011 11:21 AM, Andrej Bauer wrote:
>> I completely agree that it does not have to be that hard.
>>
>> On the bright side, we are currently working hard on improving the
>> Eclipse support for OCaml, and we should be able to release an improved
>> plugin in a few months.
>>
>> We also plan to release Windows installers for the next versions of
>> OCaml, to continue the great work started by Jonathan Protzenko.
> Yes, please don't take my report as whining (only), but just as a user
> experience report, to see how things go wrong.
>
> I think it is particularly hard to get things right because there is
> no single place which describes the correct procedure. Some people
> will start with the Eclipse plugin and won't realize they need to
> install Ocaml separately. Some people will install Ocaml, but won't
> read instructions and won't install Mingw (like my student).
>
> Suppose you do it the logical way:
>
> 1. Install Ocaml.
> 2. Install OcaIDE.
>
> Then you'll still end up installing Mingw and later Cygwin, when
> Cygwin with Mingw selected was all that was needed.
OcaIDE requires Cygwin? I'm not seeing that anywhere on the OcaIDE page...
>
> The Ocaml web site, or wherever Google sends people who type in
> "install ocaml",  should have _unambigious_ set of instructions. No
> ifs and thens and "Level 1" and "Level 2", and "source code or binary
> installer" and "you need Mingw but you don't really because you can
> have Microsoft stuff as well, and if you want 64-bit then Mingw is no
> good, and there will be further surprises when you get to OcaIDE, we
> lied about Mingw and Microsoft stuff, you will need cygwin anyhow,
> etc."
>
> People expect:
> 1. Install these prerequisites.
> 2. Install this stuff.
> 3. Install that stuff.
> 4. It's working.
> 5. Somewhere at the bottom of the instructions there is a link to
> "alternative ways of installing" and "troubleshooting".
>
> If you make them decide whether they want Mingw or Microsoft right at
> the beginning, it's already a lost battle. If you list installation
> from source code before you list the binary installer, that's a big
> mistake. People who want and know how to install from source will find
> the source code even if you hide it from them. The other 99% will just
> get confused.
So that's one of the pain points that I wanted to alleviate with the 
OCaml installer. I (honestly) think it does solve some problems already 
by making sure ActiveTcl is installed, and by also installing Emacs if 
wanted. I never use Eclipse and I'm more used to the French education 
system where Emacs is somehow advocated because of its caml-mode, which 
explains the stance I took on Emacs.

What would be an ideal experience in your opinion? Have the installer 
prompt the user if he wants to install mingw/msys as well? Please keep 
in  mind that the windows installer (at least the one I provide) will 
remain based on msys/mingw.

Cheers,

jonathan

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Mihamina Rakotomandimby]

On 11/15/2011 01:21 PM, Andrej Bauer wrote:
>   We're somewhere in the "it takes a week to install
> Ocaml" era, I am afraid.

That only applies to Windows.

On Linux, it's "a minute".

Especially if people dont want to use Emacs but KDevelop 
(http://kdevelop.org/) or Geany (http://www.geany.org/) or Ajunta 
(http://www.anjuta.org)...


-- 
RMA.

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Dmitry Grebeniuk]

Hello.

  Also you can use overbld project at
http://overbld.sourceforge.net/ , it provides windows-style
installers both for binary and source distribution of
OCaml/mingw, and it also contains a bunch of useful
ocaml libraries and tools.  (direct http links for
downloading installers are provided too.)

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Paolo Donadeo]

What about the OCaml Windows Installer project? Is it still active?

http://forge.ocamlcore.org/projects/ocaml-installer/


--
Paolo

[Caml-list] Re: How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Sylvain Le Gall]

Hello,

On 15-11-2011, Paolo Donadeo <p.donadeo@gmail.com> wrote:
> What about the OCaml Windows Installer project? Is it still active?
>
> http://forge.ocamlcore.org/projects/ocaml-installer/
>

I would like to say yes, but this won't be true. Maybe one day we will
resume the dev.

BTW, any good advice to provide a link to a Windows binary installer ?
(http://yquem.inria.fr/~protzenk/caml-installer.html ?)

Cheers
Sylvain Le Gall

Re: [Caml-list] Re: How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Jonathan Protzenko]

Hi Sylvain,

On Tue 15 Nov 2011 12:00:53 PM CET, Sylvain Le Gall wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On 15-11-2011, Paolo Donadeo<p.donadeo@gmail.com>  wrote:
>> What about the OCaml Windows Installer project? Is it still active?
>>
>> http://forge.ocamlcore.org/projects/ocaml-installer/
>>
>
> I would like to say yes, but this won't be true. Maybe one day we will
> resume the dev.
>
> BTW, any good advice to provide a link to a Windows binary installer ?
> (http://yquem.inria.fr/~protzenk/caml-installer.html ?)
This is now the official installer for Windows (linked from the OCaml 
download page) as far as I'm concerned.

Cheers,

jonathan
>
> Cheers
> Sylvain Le Gall
>
>

Re: [Caml-list] How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Adrien]

Hi,

With current computers and the current state of OCaml softwares and
libraries (and all others actually), I believe that the easiest way
for teaching is to provide/use virtual machine.

There will be almost no performance impact on hardware with
paravirtualization (for CPU) and VirtualBox can run 32bit systems with
a minimal slowdown (around 10-20%).

It will also be much easier for many libraries.

-- 
Adrien Nader

[Caml-list] Re: How to fail to install Ocaml in 18 steps

[Stefan Monnier]

> I would like to report on a recent experience of a student of mine who
> is starting to learn Ocaml. His first taks was to get OCaml installed
> on his Windows 7.

Easier would be:

Visit http://goodbye-microsoft.com/
And then "aptitude install ocaml" ;-)

Also I agree with Ivan: anti-viruses are malware, so a good first step
is to get rid of them.


        Stefan