OCaml is a powerful and expressive functional programming language known for its type safety and strong performance.
Learning OCaml can open doors to exciting careers in software development, particularly in areas like web development, data science, and compiler design.
It’s also a great language to learn if you want to understand functional programming concepts in a more practical way.
But finding the right OCaml course on Udemy can be tricky, especially if you’re new to programming or functional languages.
You’re looking for a course that’s comprehensive, engaging, and taught by experts, and one that will help you gain the practical skills you need to apply OCaml in real-world projects.
For the best OCaml course overall on Udemy, we recommend The Complete OCaml Course: From Zero to Expert!.
This course is a comprehensive journey that takes you from the very basics of OCaml to advanced concepts like higher-order functions, recursion, and data structures.
The instructor provides clear explanations, engaging examples, and plenty of opportunities for practice.
This course is a great choice for both beginners and experienced programmers who want to learn OCaml.
While The Complete OCaml Course: From Zero to Expert! is our top pick, there are other great options available on Udemy.
Keep reading to discover more recommendations tailored to different learning styles and goals, whether you’re looking for a beginner-friendly introduction, a course focused on specific OCaml libraries, or something more advanced.
The Complete OCaml Course: From Zero to Expert!
The course starts by introducing you to OCaml, a functional programming language.
You’ll learn how to install OCaml and use the OCaml Toplevel, an interactive environment for writing and testing code.
Next, you’ll dive into the fundamentals of OCaml, covering lexical conventions, expressions, conditionals, variables, and functions.
You’ll learn about different types of functions, including anonymous functions, polymorphic functions, and partial application.
The course then focuses on lists, a fundamental data structure in OCaml.
You’ll learn how to build lists, access their elements, and solve various problems involving lists, such as finding the last element, removing duplicates, and calculating the average.
Higher-order functions, which are functions that take other functions as arguments or return functions as results, are covered in depth.
You’ll solve problems that involve using higher-order functions to perform operations on lists, such as filtering, mapping, and folding.
The course also covers binary trees, a hierarchical data structure widely used in computer science.
You’ll learn how to implement binary trees in OCaml and solve problems related to tree traversal, size calculation, and checking for equivalence and isomorphism.
Graphs, another important data structure, are introduced next.
You’ll learn how to represent graphs in OCaml and implement graph algorithms such as depth-first search (DFS), breadth-first search (BFS), and topological sort.
These algorithms have various applications in areas like network analysis, scheduling, and path-finding.
Throughout the course, you’ll solve numerous problems that reinforce the concepts you’ve learned.
These problems range from simple exercises to more complex challenges, helping you develop your problem-solving skills and gain a deeper understanding of OCaml.
Introduction to OCaml Programming - Lists and Problems
This course will teach you how to work with lists and solve common problems using OCaml.
You’ll start by learning how to find the last element of a list, the second-to-last element, and how to remove duplicate elements.
Next, you’ll tackle problems like calculating the average of a list and inserting an element at a specific position.
The course then moves on to higher-order functions, which are functions that can take other functions as arguments or return functions as results.
You’ll learn how to use anonymous functions, which are functions without a name, and how they can be passed as arguments to higher-order functions.
Throughout the course, you’ll be working with real coding examples and solving practical problems, giving you hands-on experience with OCaml programming.
Jump-Start your OCaml experience
The course starts by introducing you to the basics of OCaml, including uncommon data types and operands.
You’ll learn about Booleans and conditionals, which are fundamental concepts in programming.
Next, you’ll dive into understanding OCaml functions, which are at the core of functional programming.
The course covers data containers like lists and arrays in-depth, teaching you how to work with them effectively.
You’ll gain insights into why OCaml is strongly typed and learn about polymorphism, a powerful feature that allows code to work with different data types.
The course then explores the true essence of functional programming in OCaml, including recursive functions and pattern matching.
As you progress, you’ll learn how to work with functions on lists, understand default conditions, and master the concept of currying, which allows you to treat functions as arguments to other functions.
You’ll also build your own insert and sort functions, and trace examples to understand recursion better.
The course covers OCaml’s support for different programming paradigms, including imperative programming with features like for loops, pointers, and while loops.
You’ll learn how to use built-in functions and navigate OCaml’s module documentation effectively.
Diving deeper, you’ll understand and build the fold_left algorithm for lists and arrays, and practice with fold_right and its function argument.
The concept of tail recursion, which is crucial for optimizing recursive functions, is also covered.
Additionally, you’ll learn how to create your own data types in OCaml, including records, custom types, and recursive types.
The course also introduces you to classes and objects, which are essential for object-oriented programming in OCaml.
You’ll even build a queue data structure using classes and objects.