Outline of the book

Chapter 1 :

This chapter describes how to install version 2.04 of the Objective CAML language on the most current systems (Windows, Unix and MacOS).

Part I: Core of the language

The first part is a complete presentation of the basic elements of the Objective CAML language. Chapter 2 is a dive into the functional core of the language. Chapter 3 is a continuation of the previous one and describes the imperative part of the language. Chapter 4 compares the ``pure'' functional and imperative styles, then presents their joint use. Chapter 5 presents the graphics library. Chapter 6 exhibits three applications: management of a simple database, a mini-Basic interpreter and a well-known single-player game, minesweeper.

Part II: Development tools

The second part of the book describes the various tools for application development. Chapter 7 compares the various compilation modes, which are the interactive toplevel and command-line bytecode and native code compilers. Chapter 8 presents the principal libraries provided with the language distribution. Chapter 9 explains garbage collection mechanisms and details the one used by Objective CAML. Chapter 10 explains the use of tools for debugging and profiling programs. Chapter 11 addresses lexical and syntactic tools. Chapter 12 shows how to interface Objective CAML programs with C. Chapter 13 constructs a library and an application. This library offers tools for the construction of GUIs. The application is a search for least-cost paths within a graph, whose GUI uses the preceding library.

Part III: Organization of applications

The third part describes the two ways of organizing a program: with modules, and with objects. Chapter 14 is a presentation of simple and parameterized language modules. Chapter 15 introduces Objective CAML object-oriented extension. Chapter 16 compares these two types of organization and indicates the usefulness of mixing them to increase the extensibility of programs. Chapter 17 describes two substantial applications: two-player games which put to work several parameterized modules used for two different games, and a simulation of a robot world demonstrating interobject communication.

Part IV: Concurrence and distribution

The fourth part introduces concurrent and distributed programs while detailing communication between processes, lightweight or not, and on the Internet. Chapter 18 demonstrates the direct link between the language and the system libraries, in particular the notions of process and communication. Chapter 19 leads to the lack of determinism of concurrent programming while presenting Objective CAML's threads. Chapter 20 discusses interprocess communication via sockets in the distributed memory model. Chapter 21 presents first of all a toolbox for client-server applications. It is subsequently used to extend the robots of the previous part to the client-server model. Finally, we adapt some of the programs already encountered in the form of an HTTP server.

Chapter 22

This last chapter takes stock of application development in Objective CAML and presents the best-known applications of the ML language family.

Appendices

The first appendix explains the notion of cyclic types used in the typing of objects. The second appendix describes the language changes present in the new version 3.00. These have been integrated in all following versions of Objective CAML (3.xx).