From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id SAA24649; Wed, 24 Oct 2001 18:38:06 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: (from weis@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id SAA24438 for caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr; Wed, 24 Oct 2001 18:38:06 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA20150 for ; Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:59:05 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from chopin.ai.univie.ac.at (chopin.ai.univie.ac.at [131.130.174.170]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.10.0) with ESMTP id f9ODx3j27844 for ; Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:59:04 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (from markus@localhost) by chopin.ai.univie.ac.at (8.9.3/8.9.3/Debian 8.9.3-21) id PAA15628; Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:59:01 +0200 Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:59:01 +0200 From: Markus Mottl To: Rolf Wester Cc: caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Whither the Caml Consortium? Message-ID: <20011024155901.C14344@chopin.ai.univie.ac.at> References: <3BD45BC0.22418.66F4596F@localhost>; <20011023122210.A10422@chopin.ai.univie.ac.at> <3BD58FBC.24509.6BA76944@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <3BD58FBC.24509.6BA76944@localhost>; from rolf.wester@ilt.fhg.de on Tue, Oct 23, 2001 at 15:41:48 +0200 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk Rolf Wester schrieb am Dienstag, den 23. Oktober 2001: > The good reasons to use OCaml cannot be "I love it" or "it's fun to > program in OCaml" but that it makes me more productive (at least when > I'm paid for what I'm doing). Everybody claims that their language is the most productive one, but not everbody can prove it. To be honest: it is much easier to "prove" this for Java than for OCaml, because there are legions of more Java-programmers with zillions of projects. So Mr. J. can say: "Look at the many cool things that have been done in Java!". Whether these things were produced in a short time or how much effort was necessary is usually not observable anyway. The pure quantitative lack of significant OCaml-projects (on a comparative scale) makes it difficult to argue, which places us into the chicken-and-egg problem. So we better write code rather than lament about the lack thereof... > But even if you have a killer-app written in OCaml you will still > have to explain to your manager (and even more your colleagues) why > you would not have been able to write this app in C++ or Java (or why > it would have been much more effort to do it in another language). Sure! But having a "constructive" proof of your claim is more convincing than the claim alone. Especially for managers, who have a tough time estimating the validity of your theoretical claims in fields they are not experts in. > OCaml's features should be compared to other languages and statements > made concerning other languages should objectively be analyzed and > criticized. And some Java-guru would then "objectively" analyze things from his point of view... > And if for a certain kind of application another language is more > suitable this should also be clearly stated. No, never say anything bad about your product. Never! We all know that this is dishonest, but that's the way Java, Windows, VB, etc. have conquered the market. There is good reason why I have switched to a technical field from business... :( If you want to do marketing, then do marketing, not science. You'll have to play by the rules of psychology then rather than use technical measures. Regards, Markus Mottl P.S.: Even though it is much more effective, I don't want to do "marketing" for OCaml: I will still continue trying to convince by honest arguments. -- Markus Mottl markus@oefai.at Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.oefai.at/~markus ------------------- Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr