[Caml-list] Attn: Development Editor, Latest OCaml Weekly News

Alan Schmitt
2022-08-16T08:51:34Z

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 21491 bytes --]

Hello

Here is the latest OCaml Weekly News, for the week of August 09 to 16,
2022.

Table of Contents
─────────────────

Emacs on windows, merlin mode, merlin server remote on linux, tramp, ssh
clangml 4.2.0: OCaml bindings for Clang API (for C and C++ parsing)
opam 2.1.3
Application-specific Improvements to the Ecosystem
Use GitHub CI to build simple binary distribution?
setup-dkml.yml GitHub Actions workflow for distributing binaries
Diskuv OCaml 1.x.x; Windows OCaml installer no longer in preview
Old CWN

Emacs on windows, merlin mode, merlin server remote on linux, tramp, ssh
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Archive:
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/emacs-on-windows-merlin-mode-merlin-server-remote-on-linux-tramp-ssh/10243/3>

Artem Pianykh said
──────────────────

I managed to set up Emacs + TRAMP + LSP to do remote development (not
on the first attempt though, as these things were quite fiddly to set
up).

Here's what I got:
1. You need `opam install ocaml-lsp-server' on the remote machine.
2. Tell TRAMP to use path from the remote shell: `(add-to-list
'tramp-remote-path 'tramp-own-remote-path)'
3. Use [Eglot] as an LSP client. Although, `lsp-mode' claims that they
support remote servers, I couldn't quite make it work with
`lsp-mode'. This is what I have in my `init.el':
┌────
│ (require 'eglot)
│ (add-hook 'tuareg-mode-hook #'eglot-ensure)
└────

[Eglot] <https://github.com/joaotavora/eglot>

clangml 4.2.0: OCaml bindings for Clang API (for C and C++ parsing)
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Archive:
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-clangml-4-2-0-ocaml-bindings-for-clang-api-for-c-and-c-parsing/6123/27>

Thierry Martinez announced
──────────────────────────

`clangml.4.7.0' is now in opam, with the bug fixes/features requested
by @n47 and some others. All LLVM/Clang versions up to 14.0.x are
supported, as well as OCaml 5.0. The official repo is now on github:
<https://github.com/thierry-martinez/clangml> which should ease
posting issues and pull requests (and should be more convenient than
discussions on this thread!).

Support for the upcoming Clang 15 is planned for the next release that
should happen soon (the development version already supports Clang
15).

opam 2.1.3
══════════

Archive: <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-opam-2-1-3/10299/1>

R. Boujbel announced
────────────────────

We are pleased to announce minor release of opam [2.1.3].

This opam release consists of [backported] fixes. You’ll find more
information in the [blog post].

To upgrade simply run:

┌────
│ bash -c "sh <(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ocaml/opam/master/shell/install.sh) --version 2.1.3"
└────

[2.1.3] <https://github.com/ocaml/opam/releases/tag/2.1.3>

[backported] <https://github.com/ocaml/opam/issues/5000>

[blog post] <https://opam.ocaml.org/blog/opam-2-1-3>

Application-specific Improvements to the Ecosystem
══════════════════════════════════════════════════

Archive:
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/application-specific-improvements-to-the-ecosystem/10223/54>

Deep in this thread, Jp R said
──────────────────────────────

Regarding Perl vs OCaml: An (impressive) implementation of all the
solutions of the Perl Cookbook in the Objective CAML language (used at
the time) is available here:
<http://pleac.sourceforge.net/pleac_ocaml/index.html>

Re-writing these examples with "modern" code/libraries could be very
interesting.

Use GitHub CI to build simple binary distribution?
══════════════════════════════════════════════════

Archive:
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/use-github-ci-to-build-simple-binary-distribution/10303/1>

Christian Lindig asked
──────────────────────

Is there a recommended way (or example) to build a simple binary
distribution of an OCaml project using the GitHub CI? I am mostly
interested in building the executables and packaging them in some
archive format and make that available for download for different
architectures.

Guillaume Bury replied
──────────────────────

I have such a workflow for one of my project, see [this workflow
file]. It automatically triggers on new releases, builds the project
with the appropriate compiler (e.g. `flambda'), and uploads the built
artefact to the release page where it can be downloaded. It currently
works for both linux and mac (last time I tried it with windows I got
some errors and I haven't yet had the time to look into that, so i
don't know if the errors were caused by the workflow, or my project).

[this workflow file]
<https://github.com/Gbury/dolmen/blob/master/.github/workflows/release.yml>

jbeckford also replied
──────────────────────

That was a weird coincidence that I released a GitHub workflow
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-setup-dkml-yml-github-actions-workflow-for-distributing-binaries/10308>
for this today. @zozozo's solution is simpler if it works for your
intended target audience.

Calascibetta Romain replied
───────────────────────────

I did the same for my little project [bob] but it provides a
[Cosmopolitan] binary which should run anywhere, see the [workflow]
and the [last uploaded artifact] :slight_smile:.

[bob] <https://github.com/dinosaure/bob>

[Cosmopolitan] <https://github.com/jart/cosmopolitan>

[workflow]
<https://github.com/dinosaure/bob/blob/main/.github/workflows/esperanto.yml>

[last uploaded artifact]
<https://github.com/dinosaure/bob/actions/runs/2749978142>

setup-dkml.yml GitHub Actions workflow for distributing binaries
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Archive:
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-setup-dkml-yml-github-actions-workflow-for-distributing-binaries/10308/1>

jbeckford announced
───────────────────

I am pleased to announce the `v0` release of `setup-dkml.yml`, a
GitHub Actions workflow for distributing executables or libraries to
the public:
• <https://github.com/diskuv/dkml-workflows#readme>

It is similar to the [GitHub Action setup-ocaml] but has several
advantages when you are releasing a finished product to the public:
• On Linux it uses an ancient GLIBC (C library) so your binaries run
on most Linux distributions without static linking. Statically
linked binaries are simple to distribute, but can be problematic for
some copy-left licenses, and makes it difficult for your end-users
to do security patching of the libraries you linked with.
• On Windows it uses the Visual Studio compiler rather than the
non-standard (for Windows) GCC compiler. This is a necessity when
distributing Windows libraries, and reduces runtime bugs when
linking native Windows libraries into your OCaml-built Windows
executables. In addition you can generate Windows 32-bit binaries.
• On macOS it can build both ARM64 and x86_64 binaries if you use
[opam-monorepo] to build your project. /Alpha-release caution: This
works today but only if you hand-edit the .locked file. So only
advanced users today!/

Even if you are not releasing to the public, if you are a package
maintainer you may want to use /both/ `setup-ocaml' and `setup-dkml'
so that you get additional coverage for Visual Studio and [MSYS2] on
Windows, and coverage for an older GLIBC on Linux.

The full comparison matrix available at
[https://github.com/diskuv/dkml-workflows#readme] is:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
`setup-dkml' `setup-ocaml' Consequence
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
`dkml-base-compiler' `ocaml-base-compiler' `setup-dkml' *only supports 4.12.1 today*. `setup-ocaml' supports all versions and variants of OCaml
GitHub child workflow GitHub Action `setup-dkml' is more complex to configure, and takes *longer to run*
MSVC + MSYS2 GCC + Cygwin On Windows `setup-dkml' can let your native code use ordinary Windows libraries without ABI conflicts. You can also distribute your executables without the license headache of redistributing or statically linking `libgcc_s_seh' and `libstdc++'
`dkml-base-compiler' `ocaml-base-compiler' On macOS, `setup-dkml' cross-compiles to ARM64 with `dune -x darwin_arm64'
CentOS 7 and Linux distros from 2014 Latest Ubuntu On Linux, `setup-dkml' builds with an old GLIBC. `setup-dkml' dynamically linked Linux executables will be highly portable as GLIBC compatibility issues should be rare, and compatible with the unmodified LGPL license used by common OCaml dependencies like [GNU MP]
0 yrs 4 yrs `setup-ocaml' is officially supported and well-tested.
Some pinned packages No packages pinned `setup-dkml', for some packages, must pin the version so that cross-platform patches (especially for Windows) are available. With `setup-ocaml' you are free to use any version of any package
`diskuv/diskuv-opam-repository' `fdopen/opam-repository' Custom patches for Windows are sometimes needed. `setup-dkml' uses a much smaller set of patches. `setup-ocaml' uses a large but deprecated set of patches.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Put simply, use `setup-dkml' when you are distributing
executables or libraries to the public. Use `setup-ocaml'
for all other needs.

`setup-dkml' will setup the following OCaml build environments for
you:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ABIs Native `ocamlopt' compiler supports building executables for the following operating systems:
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
win32-windows_x86 32-bit Windows [1] for Intel/AMD CPUs
win32-windows_x86_64 64-bit Windows [1] for Intel/AMD CPUs
macos-darwin_all 64-bit macOS for Intel and Apple Silicon CPUs. Using `dune -x darwin_arm64' will cross-compile to both; otherwise defaults to Intel.
manylinux2014-linux_x86 32-bit Linux: CentOS 7, CentOS 8, Fedora 32+, Mageia 8+, openSUSE 15.3+, Photon OS 4.0+ (3.0+ with updates), Ubuntu 20.04+
manylinux2014-linux_x86_64 64-bit Linux: CentOS 7, CentOS 8, Fedora 32+, Mageia 8+, openSUSE 15.3+, Photon OS 4.0+ (3.0+ with updates), Ubuntu 20.04+
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Thanks to the [OCaml Software Foundation (OCSF)] for their support of
DKML. Enjoy!

[GitHub Action setup-ocaml]
<https://github.com/marketplace/actions/set-up-ocaml>

[opam-monorepo] <https://github.com/ocamllabs/opam-monorepo#readme>

[MSYS2] <https://www.msys2.org/>

[https://github.com/diskuv/dkml-workflows#readme]
<https://github.com/diskuv/dkml-workflows#readme>

[GNU MP] <https://gmplib.org/manual/Copying>

[OCaml Software Foundation (OCSF)] <https://ocaml-sf.org/>

Diskuv OCaml 1.x.x; Windows OCaml installer no longer in preview
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Archive:
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-diskuv-ocaml-1-x-x-windows-ocaml-installer-no-longer-in-preview/10309/1>

jbeckford announced
───────────────────

Diskuv OCaml (DKML) has graduated to version 1.0.0. That means you'll
see DKML listed as a Windows option for OCaml on the various OCaml
websites soon.

To recap … by following the simple [download and install instructions
for Windows] you will get:
• OCaml 4.12.1
• `dune' and `opam' working transparently as if you were on Unix
• a `playground' Opam switch so you can start coding without having to
learn many Opam commands
• your Opam switches supported by the Visual Studio OCaml plugin
• all the prerequisites you need for OCaml programming:
• a C compiler and assembler (Visual Studio Build Tools)
• a UNIX environment (MSYS2; mostly you won't see it)
• source control (Git for Windows)
• support! File an issue at
[https://github.com/diskuv/dkml-installer-ocaml/issues]. I don't
promise your Windows issue will be fixed, but it will be reviewed.

Changes since 0.4.0:
• An uninstaller. Now you can Add and Remove "Diskuv OCaml" from the
Control Panel
• The old GitLab repository at
[https://gitlab.com/diskuv/diskuv-ocaml] is being retired. There
will be a new GitLab repository with much more testing capacity that
will be online in the next few months.

Full documentation is at
[https://diskuv.gitlab.io/diskuv-ocaml/#introduction].

/Package maintainers/: Have a look at the [just announced
`setup-dkml'] to test your own GitHub packages using most of the
Windows functionality listed above.

Thanks (again!) to the [OCaml Software Foundation (OCSF)] for their
support of DKML. Please consider becoming a contributor to DKML to
improve the Windows ecosystem. Enjoy!

[download and install instructions for Windows]
<https://github.com/diskuv/dkml-installer-ocaml#installing>

[https://github.com/diskuv/dkml-installer-ocaml/issues]
<https://github.com/diskuv/dkml-installer-ocaml/issues>

[https://gitlab.com/diskuv/diskuv-ocaml]
<https://gitlab.com/diskuv/diskuv-ocaml>

[https://diskuv.gitlab.io/diskuv-ocaml/#introduction]
<https://diskuv.gitlab.io/diskuv-ocaml/#introduction>

[just announced `setup-dkml']
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-setup-dkml-yml-github-actions-workflow-for-distributing-binaries/10308>

[OCaml Software Foundation (OCSF)] <https://ocaml-sf.org/>

Old CWN
═══════

If you happen to miss a CWN, you can [send me a message] and I'll mail
it to you, or go take a look at [the archive] or the [RSS feed of the
archives].

If you also wish to receive it every week by mail, you may subscribe
[online].

[Alan Schmitt]

[send me a message] <mailto:alan.schmitt@polytechnique.org>

[the archive] <https://alan.petitepomme.net/cwn/>

[RSS feed of the archives] <https://alan.petitepomme.net/cwn/cwn.rss>

[online] <http://lists.idyll.org/listinfo/caml-news-weekly/>

[Alan Schmitt] <https://alan.petitepomme.net/>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 27802 bytes --]