Learn Programming with OCaml published in English translation

Key facts

• "Learn Programming with OCaml," originally written in French by Sylvain Conchon and Jean-Christophe Filliâtre, has been translated into English by Urmila Nair.
• The translation was funded by The OCaml Software Foundation.
• The book is released under a CC BY-SA 4.0 open license.
• It is available as a 1.9Mb PDF or a 2.3Mb EPUB, with the book's code examples downloadable separately.
• Readers can report typos and errors directly through the site.

Why it matters

OCaml's teaching material has largely lived in French, so an English translation of an existing textbook opens it to a much wider pool of programmers without requiring them to learn the material secondhand or rely on machine translation. That The OCaml Software Foundation funded the work signals the language's community sees structured, book-length teaching material as worth investing in directly.

Who it affects

Anyone learning OCaml in English benefits directly, since the source material does not specify whether the book targets beginners or more experienced programmers. It also affects instructors who might adopt it for coursework, since the open license removes the usual licensing friction of assigning a textbook.

How to use it

The book can be downloaded as a 1.9Mb PDF or a 2.3Mb EPUB file directly from the project's page, alongside a separate download of the code examples used in the text. It is openly licensed under CC BY SA 4.0, so it can be freely copied, redistributed and adapted, including for commercial use, as long as attribution and the same license are preserved. Typos and errors can be reported through a link on the site.

How solid is it

The source is the book's own official page, which names both original authors, the translator and the funder directly, and links to the downloadable files and code. The post reached 246 points and 93 comments on Hacker News within about sixteen hours, suggesting the release resonated with the OCaml community, though the page itself gives no independent measure of the translation's quality or accuracy.

Risks and caveats

The source page does not state a publication or release date for the translation, nor a date, title or version number for the original French book, so readers cannot judge how current the material is. It also gives no table of contents, description of covered topics, or stated skill level, so prospective readers cannot tell from the page alone whether the book suits beginners or more advanced programmers.