> A lot of beginner material uses List to introduce algebraic data types, inductive and equational reasoning - but you don't have to use them. In fact, the standard library encourages Seq instead over List.
I have repeatedly found this the hardest part of learning OCaml - it seems really difficult to find a tutorial that explains how to write OCaml as a real developer would working with production OCaml. Like, I don't need another explanation of sum types or recursion, these are things I'm already using regularly. I'm more interested in the things that OCaml does uniquely that I won't have seen in other languages.
For example, which sequence type should I be using most often? And how often should I be using refs/mutability? And there's lots of alternate stdlibs - should I be dipping into those? What does unit testing typically look like for an OCaml project (and what about other forms of testing)?
It's also very difficult to search for these sorts of things, because I feel like a lot of the results I get are for students learning OCaml as an introduction to functional programming, so questions like "how do I reverse a list" are answered by showing a clever recursive function that reverses a list, as opposed to the List.rev function.
I am not the author, but I'm in a similar situation (right down the Rust background and trying out OCaml for AoC), and I'd love to get past the basics, but it's very difficult trying to find worthwhile resources to do that with.
I would personally recommend trying out F#. :) Answers below are for F#.
> For example, which sequence type should I be using most often?
You should basically default to list. If you need assignment and indexing or a 2D structure, use array. If you're writing generic processing code, use sequences if you can. Use sequence if you need lazy sequences.
> And how often should I be using refs/mutability?
Only when you need. I most often use mutability when interacting with unmanaged code, translating some Python or other imperative code before transitioning it to be more functional, and inside classes to manage internal state. Otherwise, I don't.
> And there's lots of alternate stdlibs - should I be dipping into those?
I'm not familiar enough with the OCaml ecosystem, but F# doesn't have this problem. F# has its own core library and for everything else, you just reach out to .NET.
> What does unit testing typically look like for an OCaml project (and what about other forms of testing)?
I personally use FsUnit, specifically the XUnit flavor. https://fsprojects.github.io/FsUnit/xUnit.html. FsUnit is an F# DSL over NUnit and XUnit, so it fits in well with F# and functional thinking but also plugs into the IDEs and `dotnet test`.
Cool to see I'm not the only one in this situation...
I want to like the language very much, so that is helping. That CIS310something or other course that is on Youtube is pretty cool, although a little slow for me (this is usually my issue with tutorials) but I did find the book online and that is great. I definitely hear you on the search results thing...
I started declaring all my types manually just because that's what I'm used to but switched back just because I feel like matching the 'standard'.
I will definitely admit to a dodgy AOC solution (hard-coding with magic values).. but overall I'm enjoying it quite a bit.
I have repeatedly found this the hardest part of learning OCaml - it seems really difficult to find a tutorial that explains how to write OCaml as a real developer would working with production OCaml. Like, I don't need another explanation of sum types or recursion, these are things I'm already using regularly. I'm more interested in the things that OCaml does uniquely that I won't have seen in other languages.
For example, which sequence type should I be using most often? And how often should I be using refs/mutability? And there's lots of alternate stdlibs - should I be dipping into those? What does unit testing typically look like for an OCaml project (and what about other forms of testing)?
It's also very difficult to search for these sorts of things, because I feel like a lot of the results I get are for students learning OCaml as an introduction to functional programming, so questions like "how do I reverse a list" are answered by showing a clever recursive function that reverses a list, as opposed to the List.rev function.
I am not the author, but I'm in a similar situation (right down the Rust background and trying out OCaml for AoC), and I'd love to get past the basics, but it's very difficult trying to find worthwhile resources to do that with.