z0ltan

The U.S is nothing but an Oligarchy now.

What a stupid non-article.

Found the shill.

You must be demented.

Excellent. Thanks for the detailed answer - that really helps. To be honest, I want to use OCaml for writing some toy compilers to begin with, and I'm sure that that'll require only the core language, but I would like to use it for more serious projects after that!

I'll start off with "Real world OCaml" and see how it goes!

I did consider it seriously (especially after watching Scott Wlaschin's Parser Combinators video), but it seems a bit too MS-centric for my liking. Who knows, maybe if learning OCaml doesn't pan out that well, it might be F# for me! :D ... the community seems to be focused, so that's one big advantage.

Thanks for the reply!

Mostly wondering how people ship stuff if there are different variants of std libs? Say you write your code entirely using one std lib and then try to share it (the code that is) with somebody who uses a different std lib, then the onus of learning the new std lib is entirely on him, right? How does that work for teams then? I know that Jane Street is a big user and so they have considerable influence. That being said, does the std lib (the one bundled with the distro) have enough features (like all the necessary data structures, for instance) to make using it viable in a non-trivial project (off the top of my head, say writing a very simple web server)? If so then, I suppose that's good enough.

Any recommendations for learning material? I have a copy of "Practical OCaml", don't really like it. INRIA's materials seem quite substantial, but more like reference.

Upvoted for Jim Blandy's book. That man can teach!

I have always been interested in OCaml, but I have a genuine question though - last when I looked at seriously at it, the standard library seemed to be a bit of a mess lacking a lot of features. A lot of modern resources seemed to focus on using Jane Street's Core(?) which I would not like to use - I'd rather depend on the standard language for standard features. Is this still a thing, or am I mistaken, or both? Please help! I really would like to use OCaml for a variety of hobby projects, including toy compilers. Which books/resources would you recommend?

Agreed.

Here's the trick - the "r" is not as important as that ghastly "o" sound that becomes like an "aaaaaaaa" in General 'Murrican.

Are you from Melbourne or Adelaide?

Nonsense. Aussie sounds a lot like a lot of estuary accents, especially if they try to "posh" it up.

58% 'Murrican 42% British. So, like Irish?

LOL.

Well, if you can't make do without a Pomodoro-style tecnnique, nothing can really help you in any case. People who are motivate from within do it anyway.

This is what happens when you mix SJWism with technology. I hardly ever use Firefox, but I am uninstalling it pronto anyway.

All these are basic Common Sense, aren't they though? In fact, structuring them like this appears to take all the fun out of the process of learning, reducing it to a mere mechanical algorithm.

My take is this - you learn best when you are curious or can get curious about something. That kind of learning sticks. Or maybe I'm just different.

It's more about drive than anything else. If one is able to maintain one's sense of curiosity and inquisitiveness, then one can always continue learning as effectively (albeit a bit more slowly) throughout one's life.

In other words what the smart folks already do. Heh.

I like the core Scheme language, but I never could get used to its macro syntax. I prefer Common Lisp macro syntax for that, and Clojure's macro system being very similar to that of Common Lisp is an added advantage!

I love that book.

I use SBCL on macOS. Very satisfied! ;-)

Definitely this book. I would recommend keeping Graham's books for later.

Practical Common Lisp + Land of Lisp + Common Lisp recipes + the Lisp Hyperspec = Profit!

Additional readings: Successful Lisp (Lamkins - very underrated), Paul Graham's books, and Hoyte's Let Over Lambda (advanced).

It's a good book in parts, but very dry and almost reference-like in others. All in all, pretty decent.

I much preferred Land of Lisp by Barsky for the basics and Edi Wietz' Common Lisp recipes for specific use cases.

Sounds like you're still in shell shock!

Precisely. Not all of us suffer from ADHD! I simply abhor this new trend of mini-videos - all it does is break up my flow.