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  • OCaml from the Very Beginning

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OCaml from the Very Beginning

by John Whitington (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars (50)
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In OCaml from the Very Beginning John Whitington takes a no-prerequisites approach to teaching a modern general-purpose programming language. Each small, self-contained chapter introduces a new topic, building until the reader can write quite substantial programs. There are plenty of questions and, crucially, worked answers and hints.

OCaml from the Very Beginning will appeal both to new programmers, and experienced programmers eager to explore functional languages such as OCaml. It is suitable both for formal use within an undergraduate or graduate curriculum, and for the interested amateur.

Chapters:

  • Getting Ready
  • Starting Off
  • Names and Functions
  • Case by Case
  • Making Lists
  • Sorting Things
  • Functions upon Functions upon Functions
  • When Things Go Wrong
  • Looking Things Up
  • More with Functions
  • New Kinds of Data
  • Growing Trees
  • In and Out
  • Putting Things in Boxes
  • The Other Numbers
  • The OCaml Standard Library
  • Building Bigger Programs
  • Answers to Questions
  • Hints for Questions
  • Coping with Errors
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  1. ISBN-10
    0957671105
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0957671102
  3. Publication date
    June 7, 2013
  4. Language
    English
  5. Dimensions
    7.5 x 0.46 x 9.25 inches
  6. Print length
    204 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"I think this is one of the best beginner-oriented books I have ever seen, for any language." - Damien Doligez, Projet Gallium, INRIA Paris-Rocquencourt

"OCaml from the Very Beginning is a book I'd definitively recommend to anyone interested in learning functional programming" - Adam Petersen (Author, "Patterns in C")

From the Author

This book was written after ten years teaching functional programming to undergraduates at Cambridge. It aims to crystalize those supervisions in written form. It is suitable for use in a university setting, but also for the independent reader. It aims to be suitable for  both beginners to programming, and those who are experienced but looking at OCaml or functional programming for the first time. I hope you enjoy it.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Coherent Press
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 7, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 204 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0957671105
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0957671102
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 0.46 x 9.25 inches
  • Best Sellers Rank: #1,013,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars (50)

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
John Whitington

John Whitington

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John Whitington founded a company which builds software for electronic document processing. He studied, and taught, Computer Science at Queens’ College, Cambridge. His books include the textbooks PDF Explained (O'Reilly, 2012), OCaml from the Very Beginning (Coherent, 2013), and Haskell from the Very Beginning (Coherent, 2019) and the Popular Science book A Machine Made this Book: Ten Sketches of Computer Science (Coherent, 2016).

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
50 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find this book to be a solid introduction to OCaml, with clear explanations and simple readability. They appreciate the language introduction, with one customer noting it's the easiest way to get into the language.
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10 customers mention content, 10 positive, 0 negative
Customers find the book provides a solid introduction to OCaml with clear explanations, and one customer notes its excellent structure for beginners.
Complete but simple to read. Very usefull book for early beginners of this language. It is perhaps the missing book on OCaml....Read more
Easy to understand and practical. I found it to be a good supplement to "Real world ocaml".Read more
A very good and simple introduction to the basics of this amazing language. Short, easily digested chapters introduce each new concept....Read more
...I love it! The language is awesome. And this book is also really, really good. Highly recommended.Read more
7 customers mention readability, 6 positive, 1 negative
Customers find the book simple to read, with one mentioning that the chapters are easily digestible.
...but the overall structure is excellent for beginners and easy to understand.Read more
Complete but simple to read. Very usefull book for early beginners of this language. It is perhaps the missing book on OCaml....Read more
...Short, easily digested chapters introduce each new concept. More advanced concepts are only briefly covered such as modules....Read more
Clear expositions of concepts even complicated ones, clear explanations, good exercises. I find it an excellent learning tool for a beginner.Read more
5 customers mention language introduction, 5 positive, 0 negative
Customers appreciate the book's introduction to the language, with one mentioning it's the easiest way to get started.
A very good and simple introduction to the basics of this amazing language. Short, easily digested chapters introduce each new concept....Read more
...or Java or Python or something else, OCaml is still a good language to study for a few months because it really encourages you to think RECURSIVELY...Read more
...Probably a good introduction to the language for beginners as well, but as someone who's used a number of (primarily dynamically-typed) languages...Read more
This is truly an introductory treatment of the language; a tour of rudiments. If you've done *any* OCaml, this is *not* your book....Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Who cares
    5.0 out of 5 stars Easy Introduction
    Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2013
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    A very good and simple introduction to the basics of this amazing language. Short, easily digested chapters introduce each new concept. More advanced concepts are only briefly covered such as modules. Functors and OO are not covered. Having said that, this must be the easiest way of getting into the language or getting an introduction to the language. This book will prepare you to tackle the more comprehensive treatises such as "Real World OCaml: Functional programming for the masses" (also highly recommended) with ease.
    8 people found this helpful
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  • Martin Jasny
    4.0 out of 5 stars A useful short introduction
    Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2019
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    This is a kind of minimalistic introduction. Nothing wrong with that. But it is by no means the complete language. Just the first steps for a complete OCaml beginner with some programming experience. Overall recommended.
    Pros:
    - contains all the essential things to introduce the language
    - has an extensive set of exercises with solutions at the end of the book
    - each chapter is shortly reviewed at the end
    - mostly clear explanations
    Cons:
    - some of the chapter titles should be better descriptive, it is not easy to find things
    - you may have to do the exercises to really get the best out of this book. I hardly ever do that. I exercise by trying to use the language as soon as possible.
    - it introduces only OCaml, it does not say much about functional programming and its virtues.
    My copy of the book is filled with my own handwritten notes and comments, the chapter titles have been extended. Then it is more useful. I never read programming books cover to cover, I always pick things.
    OCaml is one of the best functional languages I know. Of course, this is my personal opinion.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Caius Iulius
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting
    Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2013
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Complete but simple to read. Very usefull book for early beginners of this language. It is perhaps the missing book on OCaml. OCaml OOP not enough covered.
    6 people found this helpful
    Helpful
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  • Steve Jones
    4.0 out of 5 stars Aptly named
    Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2016
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    This is truly an introductory treatment of the language; a tour of rudiments. If you've done *any* OCaml, this is *not* your book.

    It has exercises to work, with answers in an appendix. You can code along with this text. It's nicely progressive. Stuff, for the most part; no fluff. Note that you are on your own, however, as far as getting OCaml installed on your machine.

    If you already hack OCaml at all, move along. But if you're outside looking in and you want a well-written, hand-holding, easily read ice-breaker, then I would heartily recommend. Seriously, if you have any doubts about your capacity to get started with OCaml, this will lay your fears to rest -- assuming you get it installed OK (don't worry, it's easy too https://ocaml.org/docs/install.html).
    11 people found this helpful
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  • Douglas Lewit
    5.0 out of 5 stars OCaml is still a good language to study for a few months because it ...
    Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2015
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    This is a very well written introduction to OCaml. Even if your principal programming language is C++ or Java or Python or something else, OCaml is still a good language to study for a few months because it really encourages you to think RECURSIVELY about your algorithms. Most of the big languages these days emphasize iteration, which is just fine but that can lead to very complex code that is difficult to read and maintain. In many cases recursion is preferable to iteration, and OCaml will really help you to think recursively because of its emphasis on recursively defined functions. I love it! The language is awesome. And this book is also really, really good. Highly recommended.
    12 people found this helpful
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  • Mario Xuereb
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
    Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2014
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Clear expositions of concepts even complicated ones, clear explanations, good exercises. I find it an excellent learning tool for a beginner.
    One person found this helpful
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  • IX
    5.0 out of 5 stars Neat & Concise Introduction to the Language
    Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2013
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Excellent book for the intended scope. This will get you from zero knowledge regarding OCaml to enough to piece together simple programs and go on from there. Probably a good introduction to the language for beginners as well, but as someone who's used a number of (primarily dynamically-typed) languages extensively, this was an excellent, quick, concise (perhaps my favorite attribute of the book), introduction to the language.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • S
    4.0 out of 5 stars Very good for beginners
    Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2017
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Starts off a little slow if you've worked with other programming languages, but serves as a pretty solid introduction to OCaml as well as programming in general. I did notice some minor "printing" errors in the Kindle version with some graphics missing the graphics that should be there and also some minor mathematical errors (i.e. 0! is returned as 0 in one of the answers when it should be 1), but the overall structure is excellent for beginners and easy to understand.
    3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • lewkor
    3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
    Reviewed in Canada on March 15, 2018
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Good for starting out. I am a little disappointed 'cause I got farther by reading the online documentation.
    Report
  • Sulu
    4.0 out of 5 stars Excellente introduction à OCaml
    Reviewed in France on July 14, 2013
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Un livre idéal pour débuter en douceur avec OCaml. Agréable à lire et aborde l'apprentissage du langage par des exemples simples et pragmatiques. L'ouvrage est toutefois uniquement destiné aux débutants. Il donne en effet un simple aperçu du langage en faisant notamment l'impasse sur la partie programmation objet et les foncteurs.
    Report
  • Mr. T. Browne
    5.0 out of 5 stars Accessible tutorial style that is actually deeper than one initially thinks
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 27, 2014
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Coming from a Python background and wanting to learn OCaml, I have found this book to be very accessible as a tutorial - far more so than the Real World OCaml which, though excellent, is dive-into-the-deepend stuff quite fast, and also mixed in with too many Jane Street specifics too soon. Here is a great book to get you started on the learning curve of OCaml. As the other reviewers said, it's deceptively easy going, but actually these light chapters are quite dense if you go through some of the latter questions at the end of each.

    What I like most about it is that it has that concise, incremental, orthogonally organised feeling that mirrors what I expect to get out of functional programming itself.

    One could argue that it is a mite expensive for a 190 page book that uses a lot of whitespace (that's a positive for organization and readability, as an aside), but then OCaml is not really mainstream and one has to accept that this book will have a relatively low print run, and therefore I won't begrudge it a star on this point as I would much rather pay a few pounds more and have this book exist.
    Report
  • Yue J
    5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to understand
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 25, 2013
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    With a background in imperative language, I found it is quite hard to learn functional language. I've tried many OCaml tutorial, and found this is the best one for me. It was written for first year graduates without any programming experience, so it gives me a clear picture of the basis of functional programming.
    Report
  • Peter K.
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 24, 2017
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Great start!
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