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Here is the latest OCaml Weekly News, for the week of May 07 to 14, 2024.

Some code for Molecular Mechanics in OCaml

Archive: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/some-code-for-mole= cular-mechanics-in-ocaml-ann/14610/1

UnixJunkie announced

Recently, I released a bunch of code for some Molecular Mechanics calculations in OCaml.

This is pretty much at the beta stage for the moment.

https://github.com/UnixJunkie= /MMO

Maybe in the future I will create a proper library to encapsulate the Mol and Mol2 modules in there; they allow to perform some operations on small molecules.

For those interested, there is a partial implementation of the Universal Fo= rce Field (UFF) in there; only the part concerning non-bonded interactions.

OCaml.org Newsletter: April 2024

Archive: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ocaml-org-newsletter-april-2024/1= 4611/1

Sabine Schmaltz announced

Welcome to the April 2024 edition of the OCaml.org newsletter! This update = has been compiled by the OCaml.org team. You can find previous updates on Discuss.

Our goal is to make OCaml.org the best resource for anyone who wants to get= started and be productive in OCaml. The OCaml.org newsletter provides an u= pdate on our progress towards that goal and an overview of the changes we a= re working on.

We couldn't do it without all the amazing people who help us review, revise= , and create better OCaml documentation and work on issues. Your participat= ion enables us to so much more than we could just by ourselves. Thank you!

This newsletter covers:

OCaml Cookbook: We shipped a new, community-driven section in th= e Learn area. Help us make it really useful by contributing and reviewing r= ecipes for common tasks!
Community & Marketing Pages Rework: We have UI designs for t= he reworked and new pages of the community section and are starting work to= implement these.
General Improvements: As usual, we also worked on general mainte= nance and improvements, so we're highlighting some of the work that happene= d below.

Open Issues for Contributors

You can find open issues for co= ntributors here!

Here's some new (and as of time of writing this newsletter still open) issu= es that were opened this month:

Package Versions page is missing dark mode styles ocaml/ocaml.org#2341 by @sabine
(Data) Extend the Data Model of Academic Institution to Record Informat= ion about Course Materials ocaml/ocaml.org#2328 by @sabine

The OCaml Cookbook

We shipped a new, community-driven section in the Learn area: the OCaml Coo= kbook!

The OCaml Cookbook is a place where OCaml developers share how to solve com= mon tasks using packages from the ecosystem.

A task is something that needs to be done inside a project. A recipe is a c= ode sample and explanations on how to perform a task using a combination of= open source libraries.

The Cookbook now live at ocaml.org/c= ookbook, but there are not a lot of recipes published yet.

Here's how we need your help:

Help review open pull requests for cookbook recipes!

Contribute new recipes and tasks for the cookbook!

Suggest improvements to existing recipes and the UI.

Relevant PRs and Activities:

Open PRs in need of reviewers:
- PR: Cookbook geodesic ocaml/ocaml.org#2381 by = @F-Loyer
- PR: Cookbook / subprocess creation ocaml/ocaml.org#2382 by @F-Loyer
- PR: Cookbook getenv ocaml/ocaml.org#2383 by @= F-Loyer
- PR: Cookbook : linalg ocaml/ocaml.org#2386 by @F-Loyer
- PR: Use camlzip and with_open_text ocaml/ocaml.org#2371 by @cuihtlauac
- PR: Deserialise and post-process YAML recipes ocaml/ocaml.org#2372 by @cuihtlauac
- PR: Rebased database recipes ocaml/ocaml.org#2376 by @cuihtlauac
- PR: Rebased basic concurrency recipe ocaml/ocaml.org#2377 by @cuihtlauac
- PR: Rebased sorting recipe ocaml/ocaml.org#2378 by @cuihtlauac
- PR: Rebased ascii and utf-8 recipes ocaml/ocaml.org#2379 by @cuihtlauac

Community & Marketing Pages Rework

We have UI designs for the reworked and new pages of the = community section and are starting work to implement these. We are open= ing small issues for contributors to help. :orange_heart:=20

Relevant PRs and Activities:

PR: UI: Added DateTime of Event on the Client Side in the User's Timez= one ocaml/ocaml.or= g#2339 by @maha-sachin
PR: Create new Events page with routing under Community ocaml/ocaml.org#2338 by @shakthimaan
PR: Add event_type field to Events, and render tag in Event cards ocaml/ocaml.org#2366 by @csaltachin

General Improvements and Data Additions

Relevant PRs and Activities:

Bugfixes
- PR: fix: add .modules style for odoc-generated documentation pages ocaml/ocaml.org#2355 by @sabine
- PR: Fix: correct text color on community resource card ocaml/ocaml.org#2329 by @sabine
- PR: fix: Make Community card about LearnOCaml point to the correct URL = ocaml/ocaml.org#23= 31 by @yurug
Documentation
- PR: OCaml Tour: -New sections- Introduction and Before We Begin. Added = REPL definition and double semicolon use ocaml/ocaml.org#2336 by @Alfredo-Carlon
- PR: Minor line editing on "Values and Functions" Tutorial ocaml/ocaml.org#2321 by @jeuxdeau
Data
- PR: [planet]: add melange blog ocaml/ocaml.org#2362 by @anmonteiro
- PR: (data) add april OUPS meetup ocaml/ocaml.org#2360 by @sabine
- PR: Add TUM as an academic institution ocaml/ocaml.org#2347 by @PumPum7
- PR: Add Routine job post. ocaml/ocaml.org#2325 by @mefyl
- PR: (data) Add OCaml Workshop to Upcoming Events ocaml/ocaml.org#2326 by @sabine
- PR: (data) add ReasonSTHLM meetup ocaml/ocaml.org#2308 by @sabine
- PR: Add missing Mdx changelogs ocaml/ocaml.org#2368 by @tmattio
- PR: Fix small typo in Dune 3.14 announcement ocaml/ocaml.org#2315 by @Leonidas-from-XIV
- PR: Dune 3.15.0 announcement ocaml/ocaml.org#2316 by @Leonidas-from-XIV
- PR: OCaml 5.2.0-beta2 changelog entry ocaml/ocaml.org#2343 by @Octachron
- PR: (data) add March 2024 OCaml.org newsletter ocaml/ocaml.org#2317 by @sabine
- PR: Add the announement for opam 2.2.0~beta2 ocaml/ocaml.org#2334 by @kit-ty-kate
- PR: jobs: remove XenServer positions ocaml/ocaml.org#2387 by @edwintorok
Move of the OCaml Language Manual from v2.ocaml.org to ocaml.org
- PR: fix: Serve manual under /lts and /latest URLs ocaml/ocaml.org#2345 by @sabine
- PR: Remove /manual/lts URL, fix broken route for /manual/latest ocaml/ocaml.org#2348 = by @sabine
- PR: Add /api/** redirection ocaml/ocaml.org#2352 by @mtelvers
- PR: Handle lts, default and missing version in middleware ocaml/ocaml.org#2358 by @cuihtlauac
- PR: Add served pages to sitemap ocaml/ocaml.org#2363 by @cuihtlauac
- PR: Skip unreleased manuals from sitemap ocaml/ocaml.org#2367 by @cuihtlauac
- PR: Turn some v2 redirects into local ocaml/ocaml.org#2356 by @cuihtlauac
Refactor / Code health
- PR: Remove Commit module from Global ocaml/ocaml.org#2319 by @cuihtlauac (created/merged: 2024-04-05T14:17:31Z)
- PR: chore: remove learn_sidebar.eml, which was not used anymore ocaml/ocaml.org#2342 = by @sabine
- PR: Add link to deploy.ci.ocaml.org in HACKING ocaml/ocaml.org#2354 by @cuihtlauac
- PR: Use type annotation for data parameters ocaml/ocaml.org#2384 by @cuihtlauac

Example of using LSP server in Emacs

Archive: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/example-of-using-lsp-server-= in-emacs/14601/4

Tim McGilchrist announced

I wrote a blog post about my setup https://lambdafoo.com/posts/2022-09-0= 7-ocaml-with-emacs-2022.html The only change I've made is to use = envrc-mode rather than direnv-mode.

Dune Developer Experience Feedback Form

Archive: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/dune-developer-experience= -feedback-form/14617/1

ostera announced

The Dune team at Tarides is looking to = get inputs from all of you to improve the Dune DX (developer experience), s= o we've opened a small, ano= nymous, unstructured feedback form to hear your ideas on how Dune could= be improved :camel:=20

We're looking forward to your ideas! :sparkles:=20

DkML 2.1.1

Archive: htt= ps://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-dkml-2-1-1/14620/1

jbeckford announced

Use https://ocaml.org/install if = you are a first-time user (the install steps haven't changed).

The upgrade steps and release notes are available at https://gitlab.com/dkml/d= istributions/dkml/-/releases/2.1.1. For those who are on 2.1.0, the upg= rade is the following in PowerShell:

1..6 | % {  @("bash","sh","with-dkml","ocamllsp","git","opam","dune","ocaml=
run") | % { taskkill /F /IM "$_.exe" }; Start-Sleep 1 }
winget upgrade dkml

Major Changes

The opam repository is fixed to commit 6c3f73f4= 2890cc19f81eb1dec8023c2cd7b8b5cd for stability. If you need a new versi= on of a package and can't wait for the next version of DkML, you can pin th= at package's url (recommended) or float the opam repository with opam= repository set-url default git+https://github.com/ocaml/opam-repository.gi= t#main.
Windows SDK 10.0.22621.0 and VC 17.8 (14.38) added to allowed list. Thi= s supports Visual Studio 2022, especially for GitLab CI.
New supported package: tiny_httpd

Patches

Package	What	Issue
`base_bigstring.v16.0`	Implement `memmem` for Windows	https://github.com/janestreet/base_bigstring/issues/6
`core_kernel.v0.16.0`	MSVC fix didn't make it to 0.16.0	https://github.com/janestreet/core_kernel/pull/107

Upgraded Packages

Package	From	To
dune (et al)	3.12.1	3.15.0
ocaml	4.14.0	4.14.2
ocamlformat (et al)	0.25.1	0.26.1
odoc	2.2.0	2.4.1
odoc-parser	2.0.0	2.4.1
lsp (et al)	1.16.2	1.17.0
mdx	2.3.0	2.4.1
ctypes (et al)	0.19.2-windowssupport-r7	0.19.2-windowssupport-r8
tiny_httpd		0.16

Thanks to OCaml Software Foundation for sponsoring DkML!

A May update on wasm_of_ocaml

Archive: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/a-may-update-on-wasm-of-ocaml/14635= /1

Jan Midtgaard announced

Spring is over us and several months have passed since we last shared an update on WebAssembly compilation.

Introduction

wasm_of_ocaml= is a compiler from OCaml bytecode to WebAssembly, similar to js_of_ocaml from which it was forked. wasm_of_ocaml offers a functional, almost drop-in replacement for <= code>js_of_ocaml - with better performance.

For now, the compiler targets a JavaScript-hosted WebAssembly engine. The p= roduced code furthermore requires the following Wasm extensions to run:

the GC extension, inc= luding functional references and 31-bit integers
the tail-call extension
the exception handling extens= ion

Platform support

Node 22 now supports the WasmGC extension, meaning that it can run <= code>wasm_of_ocaml output out of the box!
CloudFlare uses V8 12.0 since Dec 4, 2023. This corresponds to Chrome 120, and t= hus includes the WasmGC extension, effectively enabling OCaml development o= n CloudFlare! For more details see the WebAssembly CloudFlare docs=
The upcoming 0.14.0 release of the WasmEdge WebAssembly engine adds WasmGC support too. Al= ong with the jus= t merged exception support, this paves the way for running wasm_o= f_ocaml output…

`wasm_of_ocaml` news

Since the last update in December

J=C3=A9r=C3=B4me gave a talk about wasm_of_ocaml at the IN= RIA Cambium seminar - slides available here
Olivier Nicole joined the wasm_of_ocaml effort
J=C3=A9r=C3=B4me and Olivier visited Jane Street to help them adopt wasm_of_ocaml

Notable features

Sourcemap support was added ocaml-wasm/wasm_of_ocaml#27
- This required adding sourcemap support to the wasm-metadce= and wasm-merge binaryen tools WebAssembly/binaryen#6372
A first implementation of separate compilation was completed ocaml-wasm/wasm_of_oc= aml#36
- One can compile cmo and cma files, producing intermediate archive files=
- Then the files can be linked together: relevant Wasm modules are put in= a directory, and JavaScript code is generated to load them and link them t= ogether
Store long-lived toplevel values into globals ocaml-wasm/wasm_of_ocaml#30
- The initialization code produced by wasm_of_ocaml can be l= arge and contain a large number of variables. This is challenging to both b= inaryen tools and the Wasm engines. The problem can be alleviated by storin= g long-lived toplevel values into global variables. As an side benefit, man= y closures can be statically allocated (since their free variables are now = stored in globals), which again can provide performance improvements in the= remaining parts of the code.
Tuple syntax changes ocaml-wasm/wasm_of_ocaml#31
- Prepared the switch to the new version of binaryen, which has small syn= tax changes
Use the JS String Builtins proposal for string conversions when availab= le ocaml-wa= sm/wasm_of_ocaml#33
Improve the WAT (Wasm text format) output to be more readable ocaml-wasm/wasm_of= _ocaml#34
- Name local variables (they were just numbered) and use shorter names (t= he names used to be systematically suffixed to ensure they were unique).

Other features and fixes

Fixed file descriptor management so that it works with large file descr= iptors oc= aml-wasm/wasm_of_ocaml#18
PR: Update Firefox version information in README (no longer beta) ocaml-wasm/wasm_= of_ocaml#19
PR: Fix pin branch in installation instructions ocaml-wasm/wasm_of_ocaml#20
PR: Add Stdlib.String.fold_{left,right} to build on OCaml = < 4.13 o= caml-wasm/wasm_of_ocaml#21
PR translating stubs of integers_js_stubs to Wasm o1-labs/integers_= stubs_js#10
- Tracked a bug in a test on the repo o1-labs/integers_stubs_js#9
PR: Generate valid Wasm code ocaml-wasm/wasm_of_ocaml#22
PR: Avoid using eval for statically known strings ocaml-wasm/wasm_of= _ocaml#24
PR: Have physical equality inspect Javascript objects ocaml-wasm/wasm_of_ocaml#25<= /a>

PR: Tune optimization profiles ocaml-wasm/wasm_of_ocaml#26
PR: Correction and precision about Binaryen version ocaml-wasm/wasm_of_ocaml#29

Binaryen fixes

PR: wasm-merge: check that the types of imports and exports match. WebAssembly/binar= yen#6437
- Improved binaryen's linker to check that the types of imports and expor= ts match. Found a type mismatch in the wasm_of_ocaml runtime this way.
PR: Fixes regarding explicit names WebAssembly/binaryen#6466
- The name of some module components were lost during module linking
PR: Fix writing of data segment names in name section WebAssembly/binaryen#6462
- Binaryen could actually generate a malformed name section

OCaml 5.2.0 released

Archive: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ocaml-5-2-0-released/14638/1

octachron announced

The OCaml team has the pleasure of celebrating the birthday of Inge Lehmann= by announcing the release of OCaml version 5.2.0.

Some of the highlights in OCaml 5.2.0 are:

Re-introduced GC compaction
GC compaction can now be manually triggered by calling Gc.compact ()<= /code> manually. This is expected to be particularly useful for programs that wish to releas= e memory to the operating system after a temporary memory-intensive phase.



Restored native backend for POWER 64 bits 

With this restored backend, all 64 bits architecture supported in OCaml 4 a=
re
supported bin OCaml 5

Thread sanitizer support 

Thread sanitizer is a dynamic data race detector which instrument memory
accesses to detect and explain data races at execution time. Since the
instrumentation is costly (with a 2x to 7x slowdown), it must be enabled wi=
th
the ocaml-option-tsan configuration flag. (The reference manua=
l contains
more information on how to use TSAN.)

New Dynarray module 

This new standard library module provides a standard implementation for res=
izeable array,
which is guaranteed to be memory safe even in presence of data races.

New -H flag for hidden include directories 

This new flag makes it possible for build tools to split cleanly dependenci=
es
between direct (the dependencies explicitly added by the project) and indir=
ect
dependencies (the dependencies introduced by the direct dependencies) witho=
ut
the quirks of previous implementations.

Project-wide occurence metadata support for developer tools 

When compiling a module with the -bin-annot and -bin-ann=
ot-occurrences
flags, the compiler stores in the .cmt file an index of all oc=
curences of
values, types, modules, …

Raw identifiers 

To improve OCaml upward-compatibility, there is a new syntax for lowercase
identifiers, let \#if =3D 0, which works even if the identifie=
r is a keyword
in some OCaml versions. This change has been adopted in OCaml 5.2 in
preparation of the introduction of the effect keyword in OCaml=
 5.3

Local open in type expressions 

Local open are now allowed in type expression: val (+): Int64.(t ->=
; t -> t).




And a lot of incremental changes:



Around 20 new functions in the standard library besides the new Dynarra=
y module
(in the Array, Float, Format, =
Fun, In_channel, Out_channel, and Ra=
ndom modules )
Many fixes and improvements in the runtime
Many bug fixes



OCaml 5.2.0 is still a somewhat experimental release compared to the OCaml
4.14 branch. In particular



The Windows MSVC port is still unavailable.
Ephemeron performances need to be investigated.
statmemprof is being tested in the developer branch of OCa=
ml.
There are a number of known runtime concurrency or GC performance bugs
(that trigger under rare circumstances).



Since the Windows MSVC port and statmemprof are still missing, the maintena=
nce
support for OCaml 4.14 will be extended until at least the end of the year.



Please report any unexpected behaviours on the OCaml issue tracker and post any questions or com=
ments you might have here on discuss.



The full list of changes can be found in the changelog below.




Installation Instructions


The base compiler can be installed as an opam switch with the following com=
mands:


opam update
opam switch create 5.2.0



The source code for the release candidate is also directly available on:



GitHub<=
/a>

OCaml archives at Inria





Fine-Tuned Compiler Configuration


If you want to tweak the configuration of the compiler, you can switch to t=
he option variant with:


opam update
opam switch create <switch_name> ocaml-variants.5.1.0+options <opt=
ion_list>




where <option_list> is a space separated list of o=
caml-option-* packages. For instance, for a flambda and=
 no-flat-float-array switch:


opam switch create 5.2.0+flambda+nffa ocaml-variants.5.2.0+options ocaml-op=
tion-flambda ocaml-option-no-flat-float-array





OCaml 5.2.0 Changelog (13 May 2024)


(Changelog elided to reduce message size. Please follow the archive link
above for the full message.)




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 loo=
k at the archive or the <=
a href=3D"https://alan.petitepomme.net/cwn/cwn.rss">RSS feed of the archive=
s.



If you also wish to receive it every week by mail, you may subscribe to the=
 caml-list.




Alan Schmitt

OCaml Weekly News

Table of Contents

Some code for Molecular Mechanics in OCaml

UnixJunkie announced

OCaml.org Newsletter: April 2024

Sabine Schmaltz announced

Open Issues for Contributors

The OCaml Cookbook

Community & Marketing Pages Rework

General Improvements and Data Additions

Example of using LSP server in Emacs

Tim McGilchrist announced

Dune Developer Experience Feedback Form

ostera announced

DkML 2.1.1

jbeckford announced

Major Changes

Patches

Upgraded Packages

A May update on wasm_of_ocaml

Jan Midtgaard announced

Introduction

Platform support

wasm_of_ocaml news

OCaml 5.2.0 released

octachron announced

Installation Instructions

Fine-Tuned Compiler Configuration

OCaml 5.2.0 Changelog (13 May 2024)

Old CWN

`wasm_of_ocaml` news