[Teaching] Asking teachers: what support would you want to distribute OCaml to students ?

[Amir Chaudhry]

Since this is for teaching, and we already have a teaching page [1], I'd expect this information to be available from there.

I suggest the following:

- The general question of how you make a collection of packages available could go on the OPAM FAQ -- it's not just for students (so I'd change the title).

- Additional information, on the use-case for teaching, is added to the teaching page. Ideally, with a brief example/link of how a course has used it.

[1] http://ocaml.org/learn/teaching-ocaml.html


Amir

On 2 Dec 2014, at 16:30, Anil Madhavapeddy <anil at recoil.org> wrote:

> Agreed.  I think it's important not to scatter all this information too much as we assemble it though.
> 
> Putting all of this in the central OPAM FAQ first (perhaps with categories) will give us one place to point to, and we could then create a more domain-specific teaching page with links into to the FAQ.  I would, for example, also like to link into the central OPAM FAQ from the MirageOS site as well.
> 
> Anil
> 
>> On 2 Dec 2014, at 14:46, David Walker <princedpw at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Having a FAQ with a list of questions/how-tos and links to "answers" would be terrific for me.  There have already been a couple of "how-tos" in this email thread vis-a-vis setting up Merlin better.
>> 
>> Dave
>> 
>> On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 8:32 AM, Yaron Minsky <yminsky at janestreet.com> wrote:
>> This seems like a great little howto.  Should we perhaps have a teaching FAQ on ocaml.org and put bits of advice like this in there?
>> 
>> y
>> 
>> On Dec 1, 2014 9:48 PM, "Louis Gesbert" <louis.gesbert at ocamlpro.com> wrote:
>> On how to provide a set of libraries to install, the following is on its way to the FAQ:
>>  
>> «
>> ### Easily provide a set of packages for students to install
>>  
>> The easiest way is to create a package with your prerequisites as `depends` and
>> have them pin that. A quick way to host the file is to use a
>> [Gist](https://gist.github.com). Create one with minimal contents and listing
>> your packages as dependencies -- the file name **has** to be `opam`:
>>  
>> ```
>> opam-version: "1.2"
>> name: "ocaml101"
>> version: "0.1"
>> maintainer: "Louis Gesbert <louis.gesbert at ocamlpro.com>"
>> depends: [ "menhir" { = "20140422" }
>> "merlin" { >= "2" }
>> "ocp-indent"
>> "ocp-index" ]
>> ```
>>  
>> Save that and get the `HTTPS clone URL`. All that is needed then is to run:
>>  
>> ```shell
>> $ opam pin add ocaml101 <HTTPS clone URL>
>> ```
>>  
>> Furthermore, `opam update` will then pick up any modification you made to the gist.
>> »
>>  
>> Cheers,
>> Louis
>>  
>>  
>> Le jeudi 27 novembre 2014, 18:23:40 Louis Gesbert a écrit :
>> > Thanks for the feedback!
>> >
>> > > Things, I would love:
>> > > - being able to give them a sort of meta-package requiring a set of libraries
>> > It's possible to define one within a repository. Or, more directly, it should work to host an archive containing an `opam` file somewhere, and then have them run `opam pin URL`.
>> > I'll check if that works and document it somewhere (OPAM FAQ?) if that turns out to be useful.
>> >
>> > > - perhaps some support to get access to the sources (perhaps it exists but I haven’t seen it), sometimes I push them into looking at the code of the libraries and they need to get it (or browse github). Why not also the doc?
>> > OPAM 1.2 added the `opam source <package>` command. Damn useful :)
>> >
>> > Hope that helps!
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Teaching mailing list
>> > Teaching at lists.ocaml.org
>> > http://lists.ocaml.org/listinfo/teaching
>> >
>>  
>> 
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