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Has this course changed or evolved in any way from the one that was given last year at this time (which was very good but had a few sizeable discreet jumps in t

Has this course changed or evolved in any way from the one that was given last year at this time (which was very good but had a few sizeable discreet jumps in the learning curve at certain points, which could have done with being smoothed out a little).

sigjuice 10y ago
I did this last year and don't remember much. What were the sizable discreet jumps?
- vegabook 10y ago
  I think some of the "question 3s" in the exercises were quite a challenge about 3 weeks into the course, and for people like me who insist on getting 100%, I remember spending 4-5x the allotted time on them (or maybe I'm just slow). But as per @ocamlmoocs comment here it looks like some of this has been looked at.
ocamlmooc 10y ago
The overall structure stays the same, but we have made some changes: notably, we reduced the workload by suppressing some exercises which turned out to be too difficult, and quite a few glitches have been fixed. If you have precise suggestions for improvement, please do not hesitate to send them to the course authors, there maight still be time to take them into account.
- 1_listerine_pls 10y ago
  Why OCaml instead of other functional languages such as Scala, Haskell, Erlang, etc...? Is there anything unique about OCaml.
  - Scarbutt 10y ago
    Because they are French ;) and Ocaml is as good as those you mentioned for teaching FP.
  - vegabook 10y ago
    It is purer than Erlang, has less cruft than Scala, is more practical than Haskell, and in my opinion has a very nice syntax. It is also very fast.
    - reddit_clone 10y ago
      >It is purer than Erlang Not sure what value of 'pure' you are using here. Erlang has (practically) no mutation to speak of. Thus I would consider that purer. Ocaml on the other hand is as mutating as you want it to be.
      - vegabook 10y ago
        Yes I guess I was throwing static typing, somewhat incorrectly, into the "pure" catch-all.
  - ocamlmooc 10y ago
    A mother offered his son, on his birthday, two nice designer ties. Naturally, the son quickly took one of the two ties, put it on, and showed it smiling to his mother. The mother, almost crying, asked "You dont like the other tie?"

sigjuice 10y ago

I did this last year and don't remember much. What were the sizable discreet jumps?

vegabook 10y ago
I think some of the "question 3s" in the exercises were quite a challenge about 3 weeks into the course, and for people like me who insist on getting 100%, I remember spending 4-5x the allotted time on them (or maybe I'm just slow). But as per @ocamlmoocs comment here it looks like some of this has been looked at.

ocamlmooc 10y ago

The overall structure stays the same, but we have made some changes: notably, we reduced the workload by suppressing some exercises which turned out to be too difficult, and quite a few glitches have been fixed. If you have precise suggestions for improvement, please do not hesitate to send them to the course authors, there maight still be time to take them into account.

1_listerine_pls 10y ago
Why OCaml instead of other functional languages such as Scala, Haskell, Erlang, etc...? Is there anything unique about OCaml.
- Scarbutt 10y ago
  Because they are French ;) and Ocaml is as good as those you mentioned for teaching FP.
- vegabook 10y ago
  It is purer than Erlang, has less cruft than Scala, is more practical than Haskell, and in my opinion has a very nice syntax. It is also very fast.
  - reddit_clone 10y ago
    >It is purer than Erlang Not sure what value of 'pure' you are using here. Erlang has (practically) no mutation to speak of. Thus I would consider that purer. Ocaml on the other hand is as mutating as you want it to be.
    - vegabook 10y ago
      Yes I guess I was throwing static typing, somewhat incorrectly, into the "pure" catch-all.
- ocamlmooc 10y ago
  A mother offered his son, on his birthday, two nice designer ties. Naturally, the son quickly took one of the two ties, put it on, and showed it smiling to his mother. The mother, almost crying, asked "You dont like the other tie?"