* Re: [Caml-list] language story on slashdot
2001-07-09 10:33 ` Chris Hecker
@ 2001-07-09 12:08 ` leary
2001-07-09 20:30 ` David McClain
2001-07-09 14:23 ` Bruce Hoult
` (2 subsequent siblings)
3 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: leary @ 2001-07-09 12:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Chris Hecker; +Cc: caml
On Mon, Jul 09, 2001 at 03:33:47AM -0700, Chris Hecker wrote:
> he would rather have not been linked on slashdot, at http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/slashhole.shtml).
ha, I love the 'quit slashdot' page he links to
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/klee/misc/slashdot.html
I just figure it's easier to get PR on slashdot than, say, zdnet...
Guess I'll find a better site to pursue.
> People who are interested in trying new languages will discover OCaml on their own (like I and others did), and then will be motivated to approach it in a thoughtful and respectful manner because it's good, not because it's hip and CmdrTaco says he's going to look into it.
Well, no, they won't. Personally, I don't care if folks are drunk,
giggling and naked, I'd just like to see OCaml get more popular than, say,
Lisp.
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* Re: [Caml-list] language story on slashdot
2001-07-09 12:08 ` leary
@ 2001-07-09 20:30 ` David McClain
0 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: David McClain @ 2001-07-09 20:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: caml-list
I just read the Ruby site info, and I am puzzled about why one would use
Ruby instead of Smalltalk?
On another topic...
> giggling and naked, I'd just like to see OCaml get more popular than, say,
> Lisp.
I find it interesting that you percieve Lisp as more popular. I, personally,
find Lisp to be the ultimate modeling clay language, and OCaml the ultimate
production code language -- where I can be assured of no nasty surprises
after six months of use.
There seems to be a general consensus forming that Lisp is very effective
for many problems, but expertise requires on the order of 5 - 10 years of
experience.
But the Lisp users also bemoan lack of popularity. I think it requires a
special personality of user to appreciate multiple languages and enjoy each
of them.
- DM
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* Re: [Caml-list] language story on slashdot
2001-07-09 10:33 ` Chris Hecker
2001-07-09 12:08 ` leary
@ 2001-07-09 14:23 ` Bruce Hoult
2001-07-10 0:12 ` dsf
2001-07-10 8:35 ` Pierre Weis
2001-07-11 14:31 ` John Max Skaller
3 siblings, 1 reply; 8+ messages in thread
From: Bruce Hoult @ 2001-07-09 14:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Chris Hecker, leary, caml
At 3:33 AM -0700 7/9/01, Chris Hecker wrote:
> >Some good mentions of OCaml; perhaps a good place for more? :)
>
>Can I just ask the somewhat obvious question of whether the slashdot
>crowd is the kind of new OCaml users we want to be attracting at
>this point? [...] flavor-of-the-month pseudo-programmers
Yo Chris,
You may be making the mistake of confusing the average poster on /.
with the average reader. You can tell this by noticing that the
moderaters actually do a pretty good job. Set your filters high and
you *can* see something useful. And the good stuff *does* tend to
consistently get modded up.
Not to be too presumptuous, but I hadn't posted on slashdot for many
many months and then for some reason I posted four messages in the
last couple of days. They all got a good reception.
<http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=userinfo&nick=brucehoult>
I mean, cruise over to that ICFP thread and set your filter to 3.
<http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/05/1413224&threshold=3>
There are twelve messages. Now, OK, six of those are attempts at
humour, but the other six are all worth reading. Well, three of them
are -- the others are *my* three posts, which got modded up to 3, 3,
and 4.
I also threw one bombshell into the discussion on nuclear rockets
being developed by NASA. That one got immediately modded up to 5.
-- Bruce
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* Re: [Caml-list] language story on slashdot
2001-07-09 14:23 ` Bruce Hoult
@ 2001-07-10 0:12 ` dsf
0 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: dsf @ 2001-07-10 0:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: caml
Bruce Hoult <bruce@hoult.org> writes:
> At 3:33 AM -0700 7/9/01, Chris Hecker wrote:
> > >Some good mentions of OCaml; perhaps a good place for more? :)
> >
> > Can I just ask the somewhat obvious question of whether the slashdot
> > crowd is the kind of new OCaml users we want to be attracting at
> > this point? [...] flavor-of-the-month pseudo-programmers
>
> You may be making the mistake of confusing the average poster on
> /. with the average reader. You can tell this by noticing that the
> moderaters actually do a pretty good job. Set your filters high and
> you *can* see something useful. And the good stuff *does* tend to
> consistently get modded up.
I learn many things on Slashdot. I found Ocaml and Bagley's site from
comments on Slashdot. I can see how Bagley might be somewhat annoyed
by what happened, but I think that on the balance Slashdot does more
good than harm.
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* Re: [Caml-list] language story on slashdot
2001-07-09 10:33 ` Chris Hecker
2001-07-09 12:08 ` leary
2001-07-09 14:23 ` Bruce Hoult
@ 2001-07-10 8:35 ` Pierre Weis
2001-07-11 14:31 ` John Max Skaller
3 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: Pierre Weis @ 2001-07-10 8:35 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Chris Hecker; +Cc: leary, caml-list
Hi,
> >Some good mentions of OCaml; perhaps a good place for more? :)
>
> Can I just ask the somewhat obvious question of whether the slashdot
> crowd is the kind of new OCaml users we want to be attracting at
> this point? I don't mean to be elitist (seriously), and I just
> discovered caml a while back myself so I really have no business
> expressing an opinion here (that won't stop me :), but having a slew
> of flavor-of-the-month pseudo-programmers flood this list is not my
> idea of a good time.
I think this would not be a so hard problem: we would just have to
abandon this mailing list to pseudo-programmers and start a new
Caml mailing list on another INRIA's machine!
Anyway, such a flood would be great for our group and INRIA, even if
it is not that interesting for ``real'' Caml programmers and
implementors as you mentioned it...
> I just tried to access the Great Computer
> Language Shootout a couple days ago to download some sample code to
> help a friend learn OCaml, but it was slashdotted into oblivion and
> had been for over a week.
Hey dear, don't run after the pseudo-programmers crowds like that! If
you want to get good examples of elementary Caml code, there is a
(presumably) much more relevant adress available:
http://pauillac.inria.fr/caml/Examples/oc/basics/eng.html
In addition, you would help us if you can add something or criticize
this set of examples when helping your friend to learn Caml !
> This is a simple example of how more
> attention is not necessarily a good thing (it's back up now, but you
> can read Doug Bagley's opinion on the matter, and how he would
> rather have not been linked on slashdot, at
> http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/slashhole.shtml).
You're right; however, we would be glad if people would have a look to
our well connected WEB site to find information about Caml, instead of
trying desesperately to connect to Doug Bagley's one ...
> People who are interested in trying new languages will discover
> OCaml on their own (like I and others did), and then will be
> motivated to approach it in a thoughtful and respectful manner
> because it's good, not because it's hip and CmdrTaco says he's going
> to look into it.
Hope this will happen exactly as you describe it :)
> Of course, if the Inria folks want to increase the visibility of
> OCaml in general, and think slashdot is a viable platform for this,
> then I'll defer and shut up.
We have ambiguous feelings on this point: we need outside visibility
to enforce our inside-INRIA visibility and funding; on the other hand
we are not equipped to face flood and need calm to implement hard
stuff such as generic functions and mu-rule ...
> Chris
>
>
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Thank you for your constructuve contribution.
Pierre Weis
INRIA, Projet Cristal, Pierre.Weis@inria.fr, http://pauillac.inria.fr/~weis/
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* Re: [Caml-list] language story on slashdot
2001-07-09 10:33 ` Chris Hecker
` (2 preceding siblings ...)
2001-07-10 8:35 ` Pierre Weis
@ 2001-07-11 14:31 ` John Max Skaller
3 siblings, 0 replies; 8+ messages in thread
From: John Max Skaller @ 2001-07-11 14:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Chris Hecker; +Cc: leary, caml
Chris Hecker wrote:
>
> >Some good mentions of OCaml; perhaps a good place for more? :)
>
> Can I just ask the somewhat obvious question of whether the
> slashdot crowd is the kind of new OCaml users we want to be attracting at this point?
Why not? There are some quite serious technical people there.
--
John (Max) Skaller, mailto:skaller@maxtal.com.au
10/1 Toxteth Rd Glebe NSW 2037 Australia voice: 61-2-9660-0850
New generation programming language Felix http://felix.sourceforge.net
Literate Programming tool Interscript
http://Interscript.sourceforge.net
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