gs0510 / ofronds

ofronds 🐪 🌴

New here? Here's a breakdown:

• OFronds is a set of exercises for getting used to writing and reading OCaml code. The exercises are all OCaml programs containing errors; your job is to read the code, fix the errors, and move onto the next one!

• The exercises can be run in two ways. The recommended method is to run ofronds watch, which automatically interactively runs through all exercises from start to finish. You can also run exercises individually with ofronds run <exercise>`` (see ofronds list' for a list of available commands).

• If you're not sure how to finish an exercise, you can ask for a hint by typing ofronds hint <exercise>.

Ready? Run ofronds watch to get started.

Installation

If you have a linux based operating system or a Mac you can run ./install.sh and the script will install all dependencies for you! Run ofronds to see the set of commands you need to run ofronds exercises. :)

Plan for ofronds

The idea: Have a rustlings style tutorial for OCaml. The tutorial walks the user through a list of OCaml exercises, the command prompt directs them to the exercise they are supposed to solve and then as they work on the exercise a functionality like ofronds watch can recompile the exercise and let the user move on to the next exercise.

Non exhaustive list of things to cover:

• Variables
• Functions
  • Make clear that they are curried; introduce '|>'
  • precedence and associativity; introduce '@@'
  • introduce ';' as a binary operator for expression that return ()
• Recursive functions
• Conditionals
• Pattern Matching
• Lists
  • Pattern Matching with lists
  • List.fold
• Modules
  • Basics
  • Functors | First-class modules
• Records
• Variants
• Map and bind
• Error handling
• Tests
  • Alcotest
  • Cram tests
• Signatures and type errors
• Polymorphic variants; objects and classes
• Dune files
• ppx
  • Using ppxs
    • extension points
    • different attributes
  • writing simple ppxs

Questions:

• What does watch (dune build --watch) functionality look like in ocaml?
• Release ofronds as an opam package.
• Add an install script that installs ocaml, opam, dune etc. and installs ofronds as an opam package.
• Introducing how ; works in OCaml.
• Structure into something that's common to functional programming vs OCaml specific features.
  • Functions in Rust are very different than OCaml, so it would still be a functional feature, but the boundaries might be blurry.
• Rust compiler is very friendly, and makes it a pleasant experience when things go wrong.
  • Add hints in the exercises for possible errors the user might be making. Add hints related to the exercise as well.

Milestone 1:

• Have a framework in place that can have a watch functionality and give hints and allow the user to move on to the next exercise.
• Will likely use inotifywait, look into how it will be implemented.
• Add install script.

Milestone 2:

• Add exercises for the first few topics, recruit alpha testers to take a look at the exercises/experience.

Milestone 3:

• Add rest of the exercises.