Practical OCaml (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: mli file, val myfunc, new toplevel, Objective Caml, Random Constructor, Paul Graham (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Objective Caml (OCaml) is an open source programming language that allows you to utilize both functional and object-oriented programming. Sporting features such as a robust object system, type safety, and an expansive standard library, OCaml is a language that encourages pragmatic solutions instead of dogmatic ones. Boasting performance on par with the likes of C/C++, and having compilers available for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Unix, Linux, and Mac OS X, enterprise developers should consider adding this powerful language to their repertoire.

Written for experienced programmers, Practical OCaml teaches OCaml in a code-intensive fashion. Readers are encouraged to follow along with most examples using the OCaml top-level (the interactive interpreter), giving them the opportunity to consider the purpose and syntax of each line. The author's considerable knowledge of the Java, Python, and C++ languages allows him to present the material at a level and perspective that readers hailing from varied programming backgrounds will appreciate.

Language aficionados will be sure to enjoy the occasional digression into tangential topics such as OCaml's impurities from the functional programming perspective, with thoughts about how to overcome them using mutability, references, and classes.

Key topics include

• Primitive and composite types

• Collections

• File and I/O

• Modules and functors

• Ocamllex and Ocamlyacc

• OCamldoc

• Threading

• The Camlp4 preprocessor and pretty printer

In later chapters, you'll put what you've learned to work, building applications capable of performing complex log-file processing, crawling the Web, filtering spam, and even broadcasting audio over a network using the Shoutcast protocol.

About the Author

Joshua Smith is a consultant specializing in data problems and computing infrastructure. He got into computers while an undergraduate at Denison University and spends most of his programming time using Python, OCaml, and Java. Josh lives in Chicago with his wife, Carol, and their two cats.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 488 pages
• Publisher: Apress (October 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159059620X
• ISBN-13: 978-1590596203
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #586,385 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars waste of money, November 1, 2006

By	Owen (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This is a bad book. It's unfortunate, too, because it was a great idea. The book contains many errors, from typos to grammatical errors to code indentation issues to problems which demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of the subject matter. As a professional OCaml programmer, it is clear to me that this was not written by somebody who understands the subject.

Trying to learn OCaml from this book is a very bad idea; you will end up discouraged and confused at best. Please don't buy it.

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, November 7, 2006

By	S. Chaudhary (Jersey City, NJ United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Monday morning, on release day of this book, I stopped by a B&N to pick up this book. When they didn't have it, I drove an hour to try another store. Finally I ordered it on Amazon and paid extra for second day delivery.

Since I am relatively new to functional programming, I can't judge the technical content. I can tell you that other beginners should stay away from this book.

The writing style is surprisingly bad, considering the author has a degree in English and this book had a professional editor. Much of the book looks like a bad cut & paste job. The author often describes a concept in very general terms, dumps a dozen lines of code and moves on without ever explaining what the code is doing (strange for a programming language book).

There are free OCaml tutorials on the web which do a much better job of explaining the language. The publisher did a good job with Practical Lisp, how come this book doesn't have the same quality? At $50, this book will be going right back to Amazon.

30 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very bad book, November 3, 2006

By	Rajesh Kumar Venugopal (Syracuse,Ny) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is one of the worst books I've read. What a waste of money...
The basic syntax issues are glossed over. Type polymorphism example is introduced with an error. I can go on and on
-with statement, type statement etc . Author does nothing to guide the reader through a maze of jumbled syntax. Terrible waste of a really good idea.