From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from Hermes.metastack.local (172.16.0.8) by Hermes.metastack.local (172.16.0.8) with Microsoft SMTP Server (version=TLS1_2, cipher=TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256) id 15.1.2507.23 via Mailbox Transport; Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:51:15 +0100 Received: from Hermes.metastack.local (172.16.0.8) by Hermes.metastack.local (172.16.0.8) with Microsoft SMTP Server (version=TLS1_2, cipher=TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256) id 15.1.2507.23; Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:51:15 +0100 Received: from exchange.romulus.metastack.com (172.16.0.21) by Hermes.metastack.local (172.16.0.8) with Microsoft SMTP Server (version=TLS1_0, cipher=TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA) id 15.1.2507.23 via Frontend Transport; Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:51:15 +0100 Received: from romulus.metastack.com ([172.16.0.20]) by exchange.romulus.metastack.com (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id 33I8oTPm012882 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:50:29 +0100 Received: from mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.83]) by romulus.metastack.com (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id 33I8oKAN012865 for ; Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:50:20 +0100 Received: from prod-listesu18.inria.fr (HELO sympa.inria.fr) ([128.93.162.160]) by mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP; 18 Apr 2023 10:50:18 +0200 Received: by sympa.inria.fr (Postfix, from userid 20132) id A304EE7317; Tue, 18 Apr 2023 10:50:17 +0200 (CEST) Received: from mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr (mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.104]) by sympa.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 20326E00A8 for ; Tue, 18 Apr 2023 10:50:10 +0200 (CEST) Received: from mx1.polytechnique.org ([129.104.30.34]) by mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr with ESMTP/TLS/ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384; 18 Apr 2023 10:50:09 +0200 Received: from TM.local (unknown [131.254.252.106]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by ssl.polytechnique.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 037C45613B4; Tue, 18 Apr 2023 10:50:06 +0200 (CEST) From: Alan Schmitt To: lwn , cwn , "caml-list@inria.fr" Subject: [Caml-list] Attn: Development Editor, Latest OCaml Weekly News Thread-Topic: [Caml-list] Attn: Development Editor, Latest OCaml Weekly News Thread-Index: AQHZcdLvwVeLQngDukSEHUTaNW+zJA== Sender: "caml-list-request@inria.fr" X-MS-Exchange-MessageSentRepresentingType: 2 Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2023 09:50:06 +0100 Message-ID: Keywords: Sent to dra-news@metastack.com,Marked bulk,MetaStack - Lists,MetaStack List-Help: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Reply-To: Alan Schmitt Content-Language: en-GB X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthAs: Anonymous X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthSource: Hermes.metastack.local X-MS-Has-Attach: X-Auto-Response-Suppress: All X-MS-Exchange-Organization-Network-Message-Id: bcf4b1ae-4b79-4bb8-da0d-08db3fea1188 X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: X-MS-Exchange-Organization-RecordReviewCfmType: 0 x-scanned-by: MIMEDefang 2.65 on 62.31.23.242 received-spf: None (mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of postmaster@sympa.inria.fr) identity=helo; client-ip=128.93.162.160; receiver=mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="caml-list-owner@inria.fr"; x-sender="postmaster@sympa.inria.fr"; x-conformance=spf_only x-ironport-av: E=Sophos;i="5.99,206,1677538800"; d="scan'208,217";a="53630971" x-spam-flag: Unsure, tests=bogofilter, spamicity=0.473231, queueID=EE9C55613B5 x-ironport-anti-spam-filtered: true x-loop: caml-list@inria.fr x-no-archive: yes Content-Type: text/html; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable MIME-Version: 1.0 OCaml Weekly News

OCaml Weekly News

Previous We= ek Up Next We= ek

Hello

Here is the latest OCaml Weekly News, for the week of April 11 to 18, 20= 23.

You started to learn OCaml less than 12 months ago? Please hel= p us with our user survey on the OCaml.org Learning Area

Archive: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/you-started-to-learn-ocaml-less-than-12-months-= ago-please-help-us-with-our-user-survey-on-the-ocaml-org-learning-area/1194= 5/1

Sabine Schmaltz asked

We=92re asking specifically for you, if your experience of learning OCam= l is still ongoing or so recent that you still remember

  1. what you struggled with (or still feel like you=92re struggling),
    2. =
  2. how the current materials failed you,
  3. what other materials hel= ped you understand.

if you have previous experience in other languages, we also find it high= ly interesting to learn about resources that you found particularly effecti= ve/engaging/educational and why you think they are particularly great.

Our goal is to improve the =93Learn=94 area of OCaml.org - and this is a= pretty broad topic in the sense that we want to provide a framework on OCa= ml.org where content is organised properly in such a way that information i= s easy to find and effective to use for various people with different backgrounds and learning styles.

The survey is here: http= s://forms.gle/L1oQgEs3N9D6qx5v9

If you indicate you=92re available for interview, our UX designer Claire= may contact you to schedule a video call with you.

There will be a summary of the points brought up no later than May 5 in = this thread.

First alpha release of OCaml 5.1.0

Archive: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/first-alpha-release-of-ocaml-5-1-0/11949/1 =

octachron announced

Four months after the release of OCaml 5.0.0, the set of new features fo= r the future version 5.1.0 of OCaml has been frozen. I am thus happy to ann= ounce the first alpha release for OCaml 5.1.0 .

This alpha version is here to help fellow hackers join us early in our b= ug hunting and opam ecosystem fixing fun (see below for the installation in= structions). You can see the progress on this front at

https:= //github.com/ocaml/opam-repository/issues/23669

If you find any bugs, please report them here:

https://github.com/oca= ml/ocaml/issues

Note that this early alpha version is missing two important fixes for th= e garbage collector and Windows support. Those fixes will be available befo= re the beta. The full release is expected to happen in July.

If you are interested by the ongoing list of new features and bug fixes,= the updated change log for OCaml 5.1.0 is available at:

https://gith= ub.com/ocaml/ocaml/blob/5.1/Changes

Installation Instructions

The base compiler can be installed as an opam switch with the following = commands on opam 2.1: 

opam update
opam switch create 5.1.0~alpha1

For previous version of opam, the switch creation command line is slight= ly more verbose: 

opam update
opam switch create 5.1.0~alpha1
--repositories=3Ddefault,beta=3Dgit&=
#43;https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml-beta-repository.git

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

opam update
opam switch create <switch_name> ocaml-variants.5.1.0~alpha1+opti=
ons <option_list>

where option_list is a comma separated list of ocaml-option= -* packages. For instance, for a flambda and no-flat-float-array switch: 

opam switch create 5.1.0~alpha1+flambda=
3;nffa ocaml-variants.5.1.0~alpha1+options
ocaml-option-flambda ocaml-option-no-flat-float-array

The command line above is slightly more complicated for opam version ant= erior to 2.1: 

opam update
opam switch create <switch_name>
--packages=3Docaml-variants.5.1.0~alpha1+options,<option_list>
--repositories=3Ddefault,beta=3Dgit&=
#43;https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml-beta-repository.git

In both cases, all available options can be listed with =93opam search o= caml-option=94.

The source code for the alpha is also available at these addresses:

Interesting OCaml Articles

Archive: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/interesting-ocaml-articles/1867/101

james woodyatt announced

Our @yallop is one of the authors of this paper about parsing.

flap: A Deterministic Parse= r with Fused Lexing

Lexers and parsers are typically defined separately and connected by a t= oken stream. This separate definition is important for modularity and reduc= es the potential for parsing ambiguity. However, materializing tokens as da= ta structures and case-switching on tokens comes with a cost. We show how to fuse separately-defined lexers= and parsers, drastically improving performance without compromising modula= rity or increasing ambiguity. We propose a deterministic variant of Greibac= h Normal Form that ensures deterministic parsing with a single token of lookahead and makes fusion strikingly simpl= e, and prove that normalizing context free expressions into the determinist= ic normal form is semantics-preserving. Our staged parser combinator librar= y, flap, provides a standard interface, but generates specialized token-free code that runs two to six times faste= r than ocamlyacc on a range of benchmarks.

Porting a OCaml3-based game to the latest version of OCaml

Archive: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/porting-a-ocaml3-based-game-to-the-latest-versi= on-of-ocaml/11968/1

nova4216 asked

Guys, there is not a trivial task.

There is a game engine on OCaml + a game written on this game engine= . This was all written about 10 years ago, on version Ocaml 3. Camplp4 was = used as a preprocessor. And the compiler was patched to correctly generate = ARM code for iOS.

The task is to port the engine and the game to the latest version of Oca= ml which supports arm64 on all platforms by default.

We can make the engine Open Source - maybe it will help the Ocaml commun= ity to release more games in their favorite language for mobile platforms.

If anyone is interested in the task - feel free to contact me, and we wi= ll be glad to discuss the details! Of course, there will be a reward for su= ccessful completion of the task.

nova4216@gmail.com

nova4216 later added

The game itself is called The Big Farm Theory. The engine in this thread= is Lightning:

Old CWN

If you happen to miss a CWN, you can send me a message and I=92ll mail it to you, or go take a look at the archive or the RSS feed of the archives.

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