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Dominic's CTM wiki deserves more attention than it seems to be getting.

The wiki doesn't have much content at the moment, but you guys can help fix that!

More textbooks should have wikis. It's a great way to enhance the reading experience. Don't you think so?

By Ehud Lamm at 2005-02-05 21:19 | General | other blogs | 5929 reads

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More textbooks should have wikis

That sounds like a great way to keep an up-to-date errata list. It happens pretty often that you report an error to an author, and they agree it was a mistake but never get around to posting an updated errata list, even if the book already had a website. (Not saying CTM is like that -- I still haven't read it even.)

By Darius Bacon at Sat, 2005-02-05 22:20 | login or register to post comments

Agreed

I agree, but not only for errata. Discussions about the finer points, further reading and related topics would be interesting for other books as well. I stopped reading CTM a while ago to care for more pressing things but will get back to it shortly. I plan to contribute to this wiki then.

By Andrei Formiga at Sun, 2005-02-06 04:17 | login or register to post comments

A starting point

I've been working my way through CTM in dribs and drabs (it has a lot of competition for my reading time ;-) ) for some time now, and would gladly contribute to the wiki.

However, though there are probably lots of things to say, there doesn't seem to be a starting point to get the ball rolling.

Some more clues as to what might be of interest or some starting "threads" might be helpful in this regard.

I haven't found any errata so far, if that is what is mainly of interest. ;-)

By Marc Hamann at Sun, 2005-02-06 13:38 | login or register to post comments

Growing a wiki

There need to be more talking points, in addition to informative content; more stubs for future conversations. It needs more work from me, I think, in order to prompt and encourage contributions from others. I wasn't going to mention it on the front page of LtU just yet! But the wiki is now linked from the main page for the book itself, amongst other places...

I get the impression (reading the server stats) that quite a few people have dropped by, seen that there's not much there yet, bookmarked/tagged it for future reference and then gone away again. A little more "stickiness" is what's required. Perhaps I should start an acrimonious argument about "static" vs "dynamic" typing somewhere on the site...;)

I aim to start posting some of my own reading notes when I get the time (to read, make notes, and post them). There's now also a link to some Python code of mine implementing a "DataflowObject" on the page on CTM in other languages.

By Dominic Fox at Sun, 2005-02-06 13:57 | login or register to post comments

Well there's a good start ;-)

There's now also a link to some Python code of mine implementing a "DataflowObject" on the page on CTM in other languages.

Since I just posted my Java example of a declarative dataflow variable class in another thread, perhaps I should post that to the Wiki. ;-)

By Marc Hamann at Sun, 2005-02-06 14:05 | login or register to post comments

Project Ideas

I've added a "Project Ideas" link to the "Community Portal" page and tossed out some initial ideas. I'm afraid that reading notes will have to wait; I'm currently going through TAPL and then ATITAPL, then I'll return to CTM.

By Paul Snively at Sun, 2005-02-06 17:48 | login or register to post comments

Added the Alice stuff I had to the Wiki

Finally finished Chapter #01 for Alice ML during the Super Bowl. Got hung up on the Object/Class stuff, which it turns out were dirt simple in Alice.

One question I have concerns the Exercises. Would it be inappropriate to post solutions? (Even if they happen to be given in a language other than Oz?) Been so long since I was a student, that I forget that learning is not always the top priority.

By Chris Rathman at Mon, 2005-02-07 04:22 | login or register to post comments

Speaking personally

I would endorse the posting of at least some of the solutions in a language other than Oz. In some cases they're quite Oz-specific anyway (verify that the Oz semantics stipulates that X should happen in this case), and in others I should think that by the time you'd translated the answer back into Oz you'd have achieved the understanding the exercise was supposed to promote. Use your discretion. And we'll have to make sure that professors teaching with CTM know about the site...

By Dominic Fox at Mon, 2005-02-07 16:18 | login or register to post comments

Thanks for contributions so far

Thanks to all LtU readers who have contributed pages or ideas so far. Parts of the wiki are beginning to take shape.

I'm particularly pleased that there seems to be some balance between quite Mozart/Oz-specific stuff and quite concepts-centred materical. Although it wouldn't be unreasonable to refer to CTM as the Oz book, I think that the book's claim to teach programming is well-supported by the interest it holds for programmers in other languages.

(My preferred nickname would be The Cathedral Book - after all, a Cathedral could be defined as a broad church, which is how I would describe the inclusiveness of CTM's approach to programming concepts).

By Dominic Fox at Mon, 2005-02-07 16:10 | login or register to post comments