Learn Programming with OCaml: Free English Translation of the Classic French Textbook
Sylvain Conchon and Jean-Christophe Filliâtre's acclaimed French introduction to programming with OCaml is now available in English, translated by Urmila Nair and funded by the OCaml Software Foundation. The book is openly licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 and can be downloaded as a PDF or EPUB, with source code available online.
The translation was funded by The OCaml Software Foundation.
- tialaramex
I believe that an ML should be the First Language for Computer Scientists. It's much less clear which language we should teach people for whom it will likely be their Only Language, today Python is common, and for fields which care about stats often R is used, I've also seen Java used in this role. But for a First Language specifically I am in no doubt that an ML should be chosen, and this is despite the fact that the University where I work has taught Java for decades and Python most recently as First Language.
I'm an old man, I learned the Standard ML of New Jersey when I was an undergraduate many years ago, but I'm pretty sure that experience though it isn't irrelevant, did not overly colour my belief in what we [speaking broadly of humanity] ought to teach.
- __rito__
This is the best OCaml resource I know, and I have gone through it in full, and highly recommend:
CS3110: OCaml Programming: Correct + Efficient + Beautiful [0]
It is one of the best programming resources that I know of.
- zvmaz
Tangentially, a great interview with the creator of OCaml, Xavier Leroy [1].
- sweetjuly
I do really wonder what it would be like to learn to program for the first time with OCaml.
I remember learning to use OCaml in a properly functional way after so long writing code in C and it was really miserably painful trying to change how I thought about algorithms. I eventually got over the hill and it changed how I write code in C (for the better?), but I do wonder if it would have been easier to have learned OCaml as a first language instead.
- Fervicus
OCaml programmers, what learning resource would you recommend starting out with? I know there's https://cs3110.github.io/textbook/chapters/basics/intro.html. How does this book compare? Anything else you would recommend?
- jan_m_savage
This book, while excellent otherwise, is much too harder for beginners, IMO. The pace is too brisk, and it's far from pedagogically useful if you don't already know how to program.
- netfortius
The French original version of the book appears to be 12 years old (2014). Is the English translation linked here a somehow more up to date book?
- amelius
What is the recommended GUI framework for OCaml? (Please don't say HTML)