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 UAA14650; Thu, 18 Mar 2004 20:00:11 +0100 (MET) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id UAA15091 for ; Thu, 18 Mar 2004 20:00:10 +0100 (MET) Received: from hirsch.in-berlin.de (hirsch.in-berlin.de [192.109.42.6]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i2IJ0cKW029598 for ; Thu, 18 Mar 2004 20:00:38 +0100 X-Envelope-From: oliver@first.in-berlin.de X-Envelope-To: Received: from hirsch.in-berlin.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by hirsch.in-berlin.de (8.12.11/8.12.11/Debian-3) with ESMTP id i2IJ02vB006622 for ; Thu, 18 Mar 2004 20:00:06 +0100 Received: from first.UUCP (uucp@localhost) by hirsch.in-berlin.de (8.12.11/8.12.11/Debian-3) with UUCP id i2IIoBcw005731 for inria.fr!caml-list; Thu, 18 Mar 2004 19:50:11 +0100 Received: by first.in-berlin.de via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.114) Thu, 18 Mar 2004 19:41:18 +0100 (CET) From: oliver@first.in-berlin.de (Oliver Bandel) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 19:41:18 +0100 To: caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: OCaml's Cathedral & Bazaar (was Re: [Caml-list] Completeness of "Unix" run-time library) Message-ID: <20040318184118.GC702@first.in-berlin.de> References: <00cd01c40cdb$71c34410$4500a8c0@warp> <200403181312.i2IDCaDI010697@nerd-xing.mit.edu> <20040318135650.GB23915@redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040318135650.GB23915@redhat.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i X-Miltered: at nez-perce by Joe's j-chkmail ("http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr")! X-Loop: caml-list@inria.fr X-Spam: no; 0.00; oliver:01 in-berlin:01 oliver:01 bandel:01 ocaml's:01 caml-list:01 run-time:01 2004:99 2004:99 shelves:99 specialists:99 ocaml's:01 slower:01 model:01 cpan:01 Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 180 On Thu, Mar 18, 2004 at 01:56:50PM +0000, Richard Jones wrote: > On Thu, Mar 18, 2004 at 08:12:36AM -0500, John Carr wrote: > > 1. Nobody else knows the language. > > 2. It doesn't run on our platform. > > 3. It will break and we can't get support. > > These things will always be a problem until OCaml becomes (to use a > marketing term) a "whole product". This means that it has a full > suite of supporting skills and documentation. There are currently two > books, and a few web tutorials. For OCaml to become a whole product > we'd need to see a few shelves full of books at the local bookstore, > and specialists in each city offering support, and major external > companies signing on. Point 1 => same problem as with Linux about ten years ago Point 2 => really not running on that platform? Point 3 => The INRIA-cathedral will help to prevent this problem in the sense of "we do not allow any hacker to make changes in the core language" [...] > > This means that if OCaml's development process is, on average, just > slightly slower than the average (however that would be measured) then > OCaml will NEVER overtake other languages and become widely adopted. > In this sense, an open, rapid development model is vital, and an > unresponsive team at INRIA could kill adoption, and eventually any > chances the language has of becoming widely used. IMHO OCaml is some decades in the future... what you can do with OCaml right now (the language, not necessarily the additional libraries and the programs you can find as free-software) is much, much more powerful than what you can do in other languages. I was astouned how powerful the language is, compared to Perl. If I prefer OCaml to Perl, even if Perl has more libraries and modules (via CPAN), becaus eof the power of the language, then this is MY decision. An d I think I have reasons for this decision. When "the other people" don't decide to use Ocaml, so that is not my problem. Yes, it would be nice to use that language on a job, not only in own provate projects. But I don't think that the bazaar-method will change one of the above prejudices. It's not a matter of the developing method, it's a matter of hype, of marketing and many prejudices, as you also can see on the topic of fuzzy logic. It's bad, stupid, silly.... and functional programming.... ...most people think that "functional programming" is what imperative non-OO languages provide: They have problems with the name "functional". Often people think: C++ is object-oriented and C is functional. So when you mention a functional language, people often say it's old stuff, because you don't mention OOP. You can't stop ignorance and prejudice with a different developing method! Ciao, Oliver ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners