[cwn] Attn: Development Editor, Latest OCaml Weekly News

Tue Aug 28 07:19:02 PDT 2018

Hello

Here is the latest OCaml Weekly News, for the week of August 21 to 28,
2018.

Table of Contents
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ppx_tyre and new version of ppx_regexp
Help needed about the OCaml MOOC
UTop has successfully moved to ocaml-comminuty
6th MirageOS hack retreat - October 3rd - 10th in Marrakesh (Morocco)
Introduction Sketch.sh: An interactive sketchbook for OCaml and ReasonML
Bounty for compilation cache in opam
Other OCaml News
Old CWN

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ppx_tyre and new version of ppx_regexp
══════════════════════════════════════

  Archive:
  [https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-ppx-tyre-and-new-version-of-ppx-regexp/2456/1]

Gabriel Radanne announced
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  A while ago, I released [Tyre], a library for typesafe regular
  expressions that supports matching, printing, and routing. @paurkedal
  also released [ppx_regex] which provides a convenient syntax for
  defining regular expression matches using a PCRE syntax.

  Today, we are happy to announce the release of [ppx_tyre], which
  combines the flexibility and safety of tyre with the convenience of
  ppx_regexp. This also marks new releases of both tyre and ppx_regexp
  with improvements and bugfixes. You can find more details in the
  following blogpost.

  [https://drup.github.io/2018/08/21/ppx-tyre/]

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[Tyre] https://drup.github.io/2016/08/12/tyre/

[ppx_regex]
https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ann-ppx-regexp-0-2-0-and-0-3-0/344

[ppx_tyre]
https://github.com/paurkedal/ppx_regexp#ppx_tyre---syntax-support-for-tyre-routes

Help needed about the OCaml MOOC
════════════════════════════════

  Archive:
  [https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list/2018-08/msg00014.html]

Yann Régis-Gianas announced
───────────────────────────

  Dear OCaml hackers and enthusiasts,

  we need your help! The third edition of the OCaml MOOC will start in
  three weeks and that's probably the perfect opportunity for your
  friends and all your acquaintances to discover the beauty of
  functional programming in OCaml. Please, take a minute to spread the
  word around you!

  Three possible actions:

  1. Convince everyone you know to register at
     [https://tinyurl.com/ocamooc3]
  2. Print, post and share our flyer [https://tinyurl.com/ocamooc3flyer]
  3. Post the announcement message which is pasted at the end of this
     email. It can also be found here
     [https://gist.github.com/yurug/406b1cf63f083fd6aab76fb646aa3e39]

  Thank you!

  Roberto Di Cosmo, Yann Régis-Gianas and Ralf Treinen.

Learn functional programming with the OCaml programming language
╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

Registrations are open!
╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

  Functional programming is attracting interest from a broad range of
  developers because it allows to write expressive, concise and elegant
  programs.

  The course "Introduction to Functional programming using the OCaml
  language" introduces gradually the central notions of functional
  programming, via a set of video courses that are complemented by a
  rich set of interesting exercises that you can perform fully in your
  browser… Yes, this means you can start learning functional programming
  without any hassle: nothing to install, nothing to tune up! The
  programming environment is just one click away!

  During the course, you will discover powerful mechanisms that allow to
  build and manipulate complex data structures in a clean and efficient
  way.  And you will see how functions play a central role, as
  first-class values that can be freely used in any place where an
  _expression_ can appear.

  Registrations are already open at

  [https://www.fun-mooc.fr/courses/course-v1:parisdiderot+56002+session03/about]

  The course will start on September 17th 2018, and will run for six
  weeks.

  Your expected effort is between 2 and 6 hours per week, depending on
  your background, including the time spent watching the short video
  sequences of the course, that total approximately an hour per week.

  This may seem a significant effort, but at the end of the course you
  will have actually learned a lot: the final programming project will
  confirm that you acquired a good mastery of functional programming and
  the ability to develop medium sized programs with ease.

  Thousands of learners attended the first two runs of this course in
  2015 and 2016, and the many that completed it were extremely
  satisfied.

  To introduce you to functional programming, we have chosen to use the
  OCaml programming language. OCaml is a rich, elegant, efficient
  programming language that reconciles the conciseness and flexibility
  of untyped programming languages (like Python, for example) with the
  safety of strongly typed programming languages (like Java, for
  example), and that has a vibrant user community.

  Facebook, Microsoft, JaneStreet, Bloomberg are some big names in
  industry that adopted OCaml to develop cutting edge applications. The
  research community uses OCaml for writing tools like the proof
  assistant Coq, the Coccinelle program transformer, the Frama-C code
  analyser, or the Astree static analyser.  Several start ups use OCaml
  to obtain tenfold gains in productivity and stability of their code
  base. Recently, Tezos, one of the most innovative blockchains, has
  developed its entire software stack using OCaml to get high insurance
  about the execution of smart contracts.

  Once you have started mastering functional programming using OCaml, we
  are sure that other programming languages will never look the same to
  you again.

  This course will be held in English, but subtitles are already
  available in English, in Portuguese and in French.

Prerequisites
╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

  To take full advantage of this course you should have already some
  basic knowledge of computer programming, in particular you should
  already know how to write simple computer programs in some programming
  language. For instance, you should know concepts like variables (or
  identifiers), functions (or procedures, methods), conditionals, and
  loops.

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UTop has successfully moved to ocaml-comminuty
══════════════════════════════════════════════

  Archive:
  [https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/utop-has-successfully-moved-to-ocaml-comminuty/2459/1]

Jérémie Dimino announced
────────────────────────

  I'm happy to announce that [utop] has successfully moved to
  [ocaml-community].

  We started moving utop and two of its dependencies a week ago and
  activity on these 3 projects has already increased., in particular
  with several patches to modernize them. This is an encouraging start
  for the ocaml-community organization!

[utop] https://github.com/ocaml-community/utop

[ocaml-community] https://github.com/ocaml-community/manifesto

Perry E. Metzger then added
───────────────────────────

  Also moved are [lambda term] and [zed], and there is now a CI
  mechanism for all three projects (and will be for all ocaml-community
  stuff going forward.)

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[lambda term] https://github.com/ocaml-community/lambda-term

[zed] https://github.com/ocaml-community/zed

6th MirageOS hack retreat - October 3rd - 10th in Marrakesh (Morocco)
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  Archive:
  [https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/6th-mirageos-hack-retreat-october-3rd-10th-in-marrakesh-morocco/2461/1]

Hannes Mehnert announced
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  It is an entire week of designing, chasing bugs, coding, with a
  reasonably large group of MirageOS hackers. Similar to earlier
  retreats, it will take place in the medina of Marrakesh. There is no
  schedule, but ad-hoc sessions (talks and/or workshops) are
  appreciated. If you're interested, find more information in reports
  from earlier retreats (see
  [https://linse.me/2018/04/20/Visiting-the-camels.html] and
  [https://mirage.io/blog/2017-winter-hackathon-roundup] and
  [http://ollehost.dk/blog/2017/03/17/travel-report-mirageos-hack-retreat-in-marrakesh-2017/]
  and even more on [http://retreat.mirage.io]).

  Everybody is welcome, it is usually a mix of MirageOS&OCaml experts
  and new people, which leads to a good knowledge transfer.  Please sign
  up soon via mail, see details at [http://retreat.mirage.io]

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Introduction Sketch.sh: An interactive sketchbook for OCaml and ReasonML
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  Archive:
  [https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/introduction-sketch-sh-an-interactive-sketchbook-for-ocaml-and-reasonml/2465/1]

Khoa Nguyen announced
─────────────────────

  Hello everyone, over the past few months, I've been working on a
  little project called [Sketch.sh]. It's a interactive notebook style
  (like IPython and Jupyter).

  [https://discourse-cdn-sjc2.com/standard11/uploads/ocaml/original/2X/0/01666dc68fab382762ee73700654673aafdea870.png]

  It uses Js_of_ocaml's toplevel to evaluate the code completely in
  browsers. You can save/share the sketch with a url as well.

  I created this with the hope to lower the bar for learning
  OCaml/ReasonML in general. There are a lot of sketch made by people
  who is learning the language already!

  The project is [open source on Github] so check it out.

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[Sketch.sh] https://sketch.sh/

[open source on Github] https://github.com/Sketch-sh/sketch-sh

Bounty for compilation cache in opam
════════════════════════════════════

  Archive:
  [https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/bounty-for-compilation-cache-in-opam/2482/1]

Louis Roché announced
─────────────────────

  I started to write a few posts on how opam should be used in my
  opinion and what to learn for someone comming from the javascript
  world. To support this effort, I think that compilation cache (I’m not
  sure that the name is correct, please tell me) is an important
  feature.

  Some good work has already been done to tackle this issue. If you
  follow the instructions on [this page], you should be able to
  experience instant switch creation or package installation.  But it
  seems that there are still problems with ocamlfind.

  As my skills are limited, I hope to motivate contributions on this
  task by providing a bounty. This is a 300 USD bounty. It can be found
  in this page:
  [https://www.bountysource.com/issues/1250468-local-cache-of-binary-packages]

  As a side note, I am thinking that we could have a topic gathering the
  different existing bounties. I already created one to fix lwt ppx in
  the past. Ahrefs creates bounties now and then. One central point
  could help for visibility.

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[this page] https://khady.info/opam-compilation-cache.html

Other OCaml News
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From the ocamlcore planet blog
──────────────────────────────

  Here are links from many OCaml blogs aggregated at [OCaml Planet].

  • [How to implement type theory in an hour]
  • [Full Time: Lead Developer at HubTran in Chicago, Cincinnati,
    Remote]
  • [Ann: A new ppx for tyre and new version of ppx_regexp | Drup's
    thingies]

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[OCaml Planet] http://ocaml.org/community/planet/

[How to implement type theory in an hour]
http://math.andrej.com/2018/08/25/how-to-implement-type-theory-in-an-hour/

[Full Time: Lead Developer at HubTran in Chicago, Cincinnati, Remote]
http://jobs.github.com/positions/9c987ed6-a612-11e8-9d7f-5d298b484601

[Ann: A new ppx for tyre and new version of ppx_regexp | Drup's
thingies] https://drup.github.io/2018/08/21/ppx-tyre/

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

  If you also wish to receive it every week by mail, you may subscribe
  [online].
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  [Alan Schmitt]

[send me a message] mailto:alan.schmitt at polytechnique.org

[the archive] http://alan.petitepomme.net/cwn/

[RSS feed of the archives] http://alan.petitepomme.net/cwn/cwn.rss

[online] http://lists.idyll.org/listinfo/caml-news-weekly/

[Alan Schmitt] http://alan.petitepomme.net/

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