Re: [Caml-list] use of ";;" when teaching Ocaml

[Ivan Gotovchits <ivg@ieee.org>]

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forget the link...

[1]: http://www.typerex.org/ocaml-top.html

On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 9:35 AM, Ivan Gotovchits <ivg@ieee.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 9:27 AM, Alan Schmitt <
> alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Thanks to everyone for your answers, this has given me much food for
>> thought.
>>
>> On 2015-06-23 01:41, Philippe Wang <mail@philippewang.info> writes:
>>
>> > In my opinion, it's a lot more relevant to use a very limited and very
>> > simple subset of OCaml when teaching to beginners. And this subset
>> > does not involve expressions at top-level because it's not worth the
>> > trouble.
>>
>> I like this approach because it amounts to saying "one always starts
>> a phrase with 'let' or 'type'" (and later in the year there can be
>> 'open', 'module', 'include'). I sure can live without top-level
>> expressions.
>>
>> On the other hand, I also like the idea of terminating phrases, simply
>> because explaining when it terminates is not trivial otherwise, as
>> a 'let' may not be the beginning of a phrase.
>>
>> > Also, using the interactive top-level loop is, in my opinion, not good
>> > for beginners. It should only be presented to those who already
>> > understand very well the "core" of OCaml. The most frequent issue with
>> > the top-level loop is that it gets in the way of the notion of
>> > compiling a program, and it might give the false impression that OCaml
>> > can be interpreted.
>>
>> I am curious about this. My goal is to teach the language, and I find
>> that a REPL backed with a file works great to do this (using tuareg or
>> ocaml-top). What do you use to make sure students have a fast
>> compile/debug cycle?
>>
>
> You should take a look into ocaml-top [1]. It is a toplevel that doesn't
> require `;;` at all.
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> Thanks again,
>>
>> Alan
>>
>> --
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>>
>
>

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