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> Learn Programming with OCaml Lately, I keep asking myself, do I need to learn this new thing, should I force myself to learn this thing, LLMs know it anyways and so on. So (asking genuinely), should we learn these things?
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An ML is great for the theory or abstraction side of programming, but C is also hands down the best language to get a sense of how the computer is running your program. It’s still an abstraction, but at least being aware of memory management, copying vs referencing, etc are hugely important concepts that ML languages can hide.
> It’s still an abstraction C is still heavily abstracted. Modern OS evolved in conjunction with C s.t. it behaves like a C runtime simulating a PDP11 (I remember reading a nice article on that). To learn system, what you need is an OS course, not C. I'd say the current C-based stack is in a quite embarrassing state.
CS3110: OCaml Programming: Correct + Efficient + Beautiful [0]
It is one of the best programming resources that I know of.
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Escapism and making a concentrated effort on something are two different things. Yes it would probably be good if you could flip a switch and use the small windows of time we look at our phone per day to study OCaml, but it's not really realistic.. People who are asking these questions are saying "will me spending my time learning OCaml help me land that job that pays six figures and has health insurance so I can not…
>use the small windows of time we look at our phone again, it's not a small window. It's six hours. That's almost half your waking day. People spend virtually their entire leisure time rotting away on low quality entertainment. >will me spending my time learning OCaml help me land that job that's a pointless question for one you never know if something will land you a job, new opportunities don't open up before you d…
As for OCAML vs not, I think the vast majority of even intellectual and studious people would be better served trying to AI max and build some kind of agent serving businesses than trying to get a job at, uhh, Jane Street. 1% of the best engineers in the world get to work in that language, so yeah the parent makes a valid point
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 th…
> Learn Programming with OCaml Lately, I keep asking myself, do I need to learn this new thing, should I force myself to learn this thing, LLMs know it anyways and so on. So (asking genuinely), should we learn these things?
I wanted to learn a functional programming language with powerful type capabilities and I chose the Lean Language for that and not OCamel or Haskell. Reason being: Better type system (dependent types!), applicable in formal domains and can use it to learn math too.
For your bread and butter programming, there is already JS/Go anyways.
So don't see much point in learning OCamel.
Tangentially, a great interview with the creator of OCaml, Xavier Leroy [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cswiqrq6So
It gives an insight into how they thought/think and what we can learn from them.
While watching the series i was stuck by the fact that they often only focused/reiterated the conceptual basics and building on top of them in a step-by-step manner. Whereas if you watch interviews with programmers (even famous ones) you will often see a lot of fancy talk about the complicated features of the language etc.
I believe "Experts" have a way of modeling domain knowledge in their mind in such a way that they intuitively know what is the "wheat" and what is the "chaff". This is what we need to learn. Scheme can do a lot with a minimal language and so can C++ on the other end of the spectrum. So then what constitutes "Programming"? It is simply an expression of Intent via syntax supporting abstraction of state/behaviour.
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Yes. LLMs do not know anything, and they will make mistakes as a result. You have to be able to check their work if you wish to do a good job.
This isn’t really true for many programming tasks anymore. And as the saying goes, “this is the worse they will ever be”.
This is assuming that the current state of LLMs is sustainable, which it definitely isn’t.
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.
But it does say it’s targeted more for an “algorithms” course in the introduction.
As a side note, I think a REPL is the best environment for learning to program for absolute beginners. You get instant feedback and can focus entirely on just short snippets of real code, without having to worry about compilers, build systems, and “the OS” as a whole. Especially if it comes with a GUI wrapper, you can skip the terminal entirely.
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.
Yeah, I don’t think it assumes zero knowledge, which is what I’d expect from a “first programming language” book. But it does say it’s targeted more for an “algorithms” course in the introduction. As a side note, I think a REPL is the best environment for learning to program for absolute beginners. You get instant feedback and can focus entirely on just short snippets of real code, without having to worry about compi…
Agree with you wrt to REPL, though sooner or later the programmer-wanna-be has to embrace technical sophistication. :)