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

Alan Schmitt
2025-02-18T14:33:26Z

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Hello

Here is the latest OCaml Weekly News, for the week of February 11 to 18,
2025.

Table of Contents
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Learn Programming with OCaml (new book)
Ocsigen's 2024 recap
OCaml GADTs for Authentication Tokens
OCaml language committe launched
Dune dev meeting
Asking For Community Feedback on the OCaml Platform Communications
Old CWN

Learn Programming with OCaml (new book)
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Archive:
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/learn-programming-with-ocaml-new-book/16111/1>

Jean Christophe Filliatre announced
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Dear OCaml community,

A long time ago, Sylvain and I wrote a French book on [learning
programming with OCaml]. Recently, the OCaml Software Foundation
funded its translation to English. The book is available here:

[Learn Programming with OCaml]

Many thanks to [Urmila] for a translation of high quality.

The book is available as a PDF file, under the [CC-BY-SA license]. The
source code for the various programs contained in the book are
available for download, under the same license.

The book is structured in two parts. The first part is a
tutorial-like introduction to OCaml through 14 small programs,
covering many aspects of the language. The second part focuses on
fundamental algorithmic concepts, with data structures and algorithms
implemented in OCaml. This is also a nice way to learn a language!

The book does not cover all aspects of OCaml. It is ideally
complemented by [other books on OCaml].

[learning programming with OCaml]
<https://usr.lmf.cnrs.fr/programmer-avec-ocaml/>

[Learn Programming with OCaml] <https://usr.lmf.cnrs.fr/lpo/>

[Urmila] <https://www.aropefastenedbetween.fr/>

[CC-BY-SA license]
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en>

[other books on OCaml] <https://ocaml.org/books>

Ocsigen's 2024 recap
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Archive: <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ocsigens-2024-recap/16117/1>

William Caldwell announced
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Hi all!

2024 was a busy year for the Ocsigen ecosystem, in case you missed any
of it, here are the important highlights:

wasm_of_ocaml has been merged in its parent project js_of_ocaml,
making your Ocsigen projects that much closer to being served as WASM
instead of JavaScript. In the meantime you can build your own WASM by
using wasm_of_ocaml to get a taste of the future.

Major work has been undertaken on Ocsigen:

• Ocsigen Server 6
• Eliom 11
• Ocsigen Start 7

Ocsigen server no longer needs a configuration file to start your
project, you can instead start Ocsigen server in your project and
handle the configuration yourself. If you're eager to
`Ocsigen_server.start ...' you can learn more in the following
announcements:

• [ocsigen server 6]
• [Eliom 11 and Osigen Start 7]

Ready for 2025? We certainly are! Our efforts to make the Ocsigen
ecosystem more modular are ongoing: next on the list is ocsigen-i18n,
making easier to pick and choose what bits of Ocsigen you want to
include in your project, and allowing to use it for any OCaml
application. The biggest evolution of the Ocsigen project is underway
& soon to be announced, and that's not even including wasm\_of\_ocaml.
Also keep an eye out for our public meeting announcements in which we
discuss our current tasks, ask for public feedback, and answer
whatever Ocsigen related questions you might have.

[ocsigen server 6]
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-ocsigen-server-6-0-0/15265>

[Eliom 11 and Osigen Start 7]
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-eliom-11-and-ocsigen-start-7/15487>

OCaml GADTs for Authentication Tokens
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Archive:
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/blog-ocaml-gadts-for-authentication-tokens/16128/1>

Maxim Grankin announced
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Hi everyone! 👋

My name is Max, I've been using OCaml for a while during my years at
Bloomberg and at some moment decided to dig a little bit into GADTs. I
found couple of use cases for them and decided to write down one in
detail:

• [OCaml GADTs for Authentication Tokens]

I hope it would help newcomers to find application for GADTs in their
projects.

Huge thanks to @chshersh for reviewing this blog post!

Enjoy and let me know what you think in the comments!

[OCaml GADTs for Authentication Tokens]
<https://dev.to/maxim092001/ocaml-gadts-for-authentication-tokens-57be>

OCaml language committe launched
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Archive:
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ocaml-language-committe-launched/16129/1>

octachron announced
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It is my pleasure to announce the launch of the OCaml language
committee. This committee is intended as collegial instance with the
aim to facilitate discussions and consensus making about the evolution
of the OCaml language and its standard library.

Over the years, it has become a common shared grievance among both
maintainers and contributors to the OCaml language that, sometimes,
the review process for changes grinds to a halt, either because
consensus is elusive or because no one feels empowered enough to take
a decision single-handed.

In order to reduce the number of those instances of decision
paralysis, the OCaml maintainers have decided to experiment with an
OCaml language committee: [a subgroup of the OCaml community]
organised to discuss evolution of the OCaml language in a timely
fashion.

In practice, if someone feels that a contribution (a Pull Request,
issue, Request For Comment) might be stuck or might benefit from a
wider discussion, they may ask the committee to take the contribution
under consideration by mentioning it to the committee chair (which is
currently me, aka @Octachron on github).

Then the committee will deliberate on this contribution both on the
[archived] public mailing list `ocaml-language-committee@inria.fr' for
internal committee discussion [^1] and possibly on the relevant
community channels ([ocaml/ocaml] or [here on discuss]). At the end of
this collegial discussion, the committee will publish a consultative
decision on the matter. We expect that having such a collegial
consultative decision would be enough to unblock most situations.

For more details, the intended working of the committee is described
at <https://github.com/ocaml/RFCs/blob/master/Committee.md> .

Happy hacking, Florian Angeletti for the OCaml Language Committee

[^1]: Anyone is welcome to subscribe to the mailing list to attend to
the discussions, but please do not flood the mailing list so that we
can keep it fully open.

[a subgroup of the OCaml community]
<https://github.com/ocaml/RFCs/blob/master/Committee.md#who-is-the-committee>

[archived] <https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/ocaml-language-committee>

[ocaml/ocaml] <https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/>

[here on discuss] <https://discuss.ocaml.org>

Dune dev meeting
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Archive: <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-dune-dev-meeting/14994/23>

art-w announced
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Hello! The next Dune Dev Meeting will be on *Wednesday, February, 19th
at 4pm CET* for an hour long discussion.

Whether you are a maintainer, a regular contributor, a new joiner or
just curious, you are welcome to join: these discussions are opened!
The goal of these meetings is to provide a place to discuss the
ongoing work together and synchronize with the Dune developers.

The agenda is available on the [meeting dedicated page]. Feel free to
add more items in it.

• Meeting link: [zoom]
• Calendar event: [google calendar]
• Wiki with informations and previous notes: [dune wiki on github]

[meeting dedicated page]
<https://github.com/ocaml/dune/wiki/dev-meeting-2025-02-19>

[zoom]
<https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85096877776?pwd=cWNhU1dHQ1ZNSjZuOUZCQ0h2by9Udz09>

[google calendar]
<https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/embed?src=c_5cd698df6784e385b1cdcdc1dbca18c061faa96959a04781566d304dc9ec7319@group.calendar.google.com>

[dune wiki on github] <https://github.com/ocaml/dune/wiki>

Asking For Community Feedback on the OCaml Platform Communications
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Archive:
<https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/asking-for-community-feedback-on-the-ocaml-platform-communications/16142/1>

Sabine Schmaltz announced
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Hi all,

I'm looking for feedback on the OCaml Platform communications,
especially the Platform Newsletter and the [OCaml.org] Changelog.

For this, I have prepared a Google form survey (you can send me your
responses by email if you prefer):

<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSctTt-WtWEU9heJixGAcAxeUxZhPeX0ioTnaPk6VKTwYHHs9A/viewform>

The survey aims to improve both the *process* and the *usefulness* of
the *OCaml Platform communications* and to help me create a handbook
that gives a clear picture of all our developer-focused communication
channels, as well as how the *new Developer Advocate role* at Tarides
can support the maintainers in these communications.

A major aim of this effort is to *adapt the process* around the
communications to minimize the amount of friction imposed on engineers
and to maximize the *usefulness to the readers*.

Thanks for your help!

[OCaml.org] <http://ocaml.org/>

Old CWN
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If you happen to miss a CWN, you can [send me a message] and I'll mail
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to the [caml-list].

[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>

[caml-list] <https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/info/caml-list>

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

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