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ideocamltyperex

Looking for OCaml IDE


I like F# but sometimes I need something light and cross-platform and without .NET for sure. I tried to use OCamL many times but seems like I just can't start it.

  1. Installed IDEA, added OCamL plugin -> Doesn't work
  2. Installed eclipse ODT plugin -> Can't launch even config OCamL compiler - too complicated
  3. Even had tried NetBeans plugin a long time ago but even can't deal with it.

So, for now, I'm using ocamlc -o "main.exe" "main.ml" from the command shell and different light editors. I don't use Vim or Emacs, I'm using nano and I have a habit of usage full-featured IDEs.

I found various documentation (this is looking like the best to start http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/oreilly-book/html/index.html for me) but still being confusing when looking for something a bit specific alike sqlite access. found this: http://neugierig.org/software/ocaml/sqlite/ with strange api annotation and no examples. And all the documentation about IDE usage I found are outdated or doesn't work.

Addition subquestion: some people told me "don't use OCamL, it's a dead language for students with low libraries support and seems like dying, use python or ruby instead". But I like the beauty of OCamL. I want to give it a try. Tell me if that is normal to use OCamL for production code today?

thank you.


Solution

  • There is TypeRex, a new development environment for OCaml. Here is a summary of TypeRex features:

    • Improved syntax coloring
    • Auto-completion of identifiers (experimental)
    • Browsing of identifiers: show type and comment, go to definition, cycle between alternate definitions, and semantic grep;
    • Strictly semantic-preserving, local and whole-program refactoring:
      • renaming identifiers and compilation units
      • open elimination and reference simplification
    • Robust w.r.t. not-recompiled, possibly unsaved buffers
    • Scalable (used regularly on a few hundreds of source files)

    There are some screenshots available on the website. The first release candidate is out since yesterday.

    EDIT: The first release (v1.0) is out now :-)