Re: [Caml-list] ocaml complexity

[Brian Rogoff <bpr@best.com>]

On Thu, 28 Jun 2001, Didier Remy wrote:
> > http://cristal.inria.fr/~remy/cours/appsem/
> > 
> > which I think is just wonderful, but I don't think its for the beginning
> > OCaml'er. It's for a more sophisticated programmer, and delves into type 
> > theory issues. 
> 
> Indeed, these notes were aimed at an advanced audience (master level or
> more). 

I think a good "Theoretical OCaml" course could be constructed from John
Harrison's notes (updated for OCaml) followed by your APPSEM notes. There's
some overlap, but that seems right to me. 

> Actually, I have just finished a first revision of these notes (thanks,
> Brian for your support). Mainly, I fixed some typos, improved the
> presentation and added exercises. The size also increased by 40%.
> 
> I might do a second revision in the fall. 

Great, please announce the updates to the list, since I think it is of
general interest. 

> > > http://cristal.inria.fr/~remy/isia/
> > 
> > This is in French, which would be a problem for a lot of programmers that
> > I know. Interestingly, I seem to have picked up enough written French from
> > reading this list (with a dictionary and some phrasebooks of course) that 
> > I could read almost all of this. 
> 
> Conversely, the ISIA notes were written for Ocaml beginners without much
> theoretical background.  I included some of this material into the APPSEM
> notes and I may add more in the future.

The beginners without much theoretical background is a very large group. 
Now that Jason Hickey's compiler course notes are available, the pressure 
for more extensive beginner docs, like the O'Reilly translation, are
reduced, but I think that such a doc should be available on the web in a 
format where it can be modified by volunteers. OCaml continues to evolve, 
but a static document will fall behind. Both the O'Reilly book and the 
CalTech notes are already missing discussion of some of the latest
features. 

> > If Didier would like to make the TeX
> > available, I could take a stab at translating this. 
> 
> This would not be a problem for me, but there could be redundancy with my
> APPSEM notes. 

That's OK, the APPSEM notes are too scary for the raw beginner audience. 
Once they ride the camel, their curiosity surpasses their fear and they 
realize that they want to understand this beast in order to ride better,
and that's when theory steps in. 

-- Brian


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