On 19/01/2024 14:45, Andrew Goh via polyml wrote:

As the latest Poly/ML 5.9.1 version is not available for Windows, I however managed to obtain a previous version 5.5.0 from source forge.

I was wondering if Poly/ML can be improved until it looks like, feels like and works like a copy of the Python IDLE IDE.

I know very little about Python and have never seen IDLE before, but here is a quite different document-oriented IDE for many languages, including Isabelle/ML (based on Poly/ML): https://isabelle.in.tum.de

That should also work on Windows out-of-the-box.

Within the IDE, the "Documentation" panel on the left has some "Examples", notably:

src/HOL/Examples/ML.thy src/Tools/SML/Examples.thy

These are formal documents that contain explanations in prose, definitions in the formal languages, and expressions that you can evaluate on the spot (while editing). There is no separate "shell" window.

Isabelle/ML is mainly for mathematical programming in a purely functional environment. Thus you evaluate expressions on the spot during the editing process: deleting an expression will stop its evaluation and remove its result from the document. This model won't work as expected, if you cause effects on the surrounding physical world (like writing files).

The proper language for physics (not mathematics) in the Isabelle universe is Isabelle/Scala: it has a Console window, but is not covered by the IDE.

Makarius

Hi Andrew,

On 19/01/2024 13:45, Andrew Goh via polyml wrote:

Hi Poly/ML List members, I am starting to pick up the Poly/ML language by relying on SML/NJ resources. Do you have any free pdf tutorials that you can recommend and that I can obtain. As the latest Poly/ML 5.9.1 version is not available for Windows, I however managed to obtain a previous version 5.5.0 from source forge.

I've uploaded an installer for Poly/ML 5.9.1 for Windows x86/64 to Github. I'd been meaning to do it and it had slipped my mind. Thanks for the reminder.

It is possible to build Poly/ML for Windows from source. The easiest way is using the community edition of Visual Studio. There are "project" and "solution" files in the source distribution.

I was wondering if Poly/ML can be improved until it looks like, feels like and works like a copy of the Python IDLE IDE.

I'm not familiar with Python. I did write a Windows IDE of a sort for Poly/ML and I use it myself. I'm not sure it's really production quality so I'm reluctant to release it.

Regards, David