Riding the Camel Deeper into the Desert of Code: Records and Variants

Extending and Encapsulating Data - Records and Variants

Up next on our tour of OCaml are records and variants. If you are familiar with typedef, struct, and union in c/c++, you’ll quickly come to understand how to use records and variants in OCaml. We’ll start off looking at records, how to define them, use them in functions, and automatically generate common functions from our type definitions. There’s more to the eye than what you get in a language like c, so pay close attention as we move through the descriptions below. We’ll break it down one at a time so you’ll have no problems!

Let's Get Funky with the Camel

How many ways can we get Fun(ky)

In any programming paradigm, it’s critical to understand how we write functions - be they traditional imperative , anonymous , recursive, or functional. In this post, I will break down the different types of functions that you can write in OCaml.

Let’s start by examining the imperative function. Here’s a simple function that prints out the phrase Hello World! $n$ times, once on each line, and returns the value $n$ as its result.

OCaml Hello World and more

Well Hello There!

As tradition has it, every new programming language experience must begin with the basic Hello World. Let’s walk the the basics of how to set up our development environment specifically for OCaml and demonstrate how to compile our basic program.

Warming up our Environment

Of course we could just use our vanilla editor to enter our OCaml programs, but a more efficient work environment leverages an extensible editor that is aware of our programming language. Editors like sublime, Atom, and Visual Studio Code are some of the more popular selections. Vim and Emacs are also options, but the new tools tend to support vi/emacs style editing while offering more extensive and expansive features.

OCaml Intro: You can have it all: Object-Oriented, Imperative, and Functional

YAPL

So why take the time to delve into yet another programming language? I find at worst, one can expands one’s knowledge of existing programming paradigms by studying the language design choices of other languages not used on a daily-basis. Best case, one discovers a new language that is rich in expression and productivity; thereby refining the productivity of the user.

OCaml

So, I tripped over this programming language in a rather random and circuitous path. I was watching a super-cool video visualizing how the Fourier Transform integral is constructed (by 3Blue1Brown). At the end of the video, the sponsor was a well-known, prestigious wall-street boutique, Jane Street, famous for hiring the best of the best in mathematics and computer science. So, naturally, I thought I’d take a closer peek at their website and discovered that they were big sponsors in OCaml as it underlies their trading and production environments. And down the rabbit hole I went.

GPOTD - Furry Lewis

New Blog Series: GPOTD (Guitar Player of the Day):

Featured Artist: Furry Lewis.

Aside from writing about technical matters, I enjoy writing about music and musicians from time to time. To that end, I want to kick-off a new series GPOTD which features a guitar player that you likely aren’t familiar with. Today at the end of my acoustic guitar lesson, my teacher pulled up some music by this lesser-known player of the American Folk Music Revival. And it sounded amazing! So, I thought I’d take a closer look at the music and the man.

Pothos - A New Take on Data-Flow Frameworks

Data-Flows… like a river

In today’s post, I thought I’d take a look at and discuss the Pothos toolkit, a work-flow tool that improves upon the design principles of gnuradio and enables real-time data-flow processes for real-time applications.

Using a MacBook Pro, an ettus N210 SDR, and an FM-antenna, I’ll show how easy it is to build an FM Receiver to listen to your favorite radio stations on your laptop. While it’s an expensive way to tune in to your local DJ, it’s a great demonstration of how to use this great kit (written by Josh Blum).

Crypto 101: A Brief Tour of Practical Crypto in Golang

Crypto 101:

Golang offers a rich collection of packages supporting cryptographic operations. From a beginner’s perspective, maybe too many offerings! I offer up an overview of what’s available and an introduction to some practical uses of cryptography in Golang. Implementation details are always critical when discussing crypto. We’ll discuss some general implications of making poor choices and how such choices can completely undermine any uses of these tools.

What’ in the box?

The top-level crypto package is comprised of a little over a dozen sub-packages that offer: