[Caml-list] Who controls INRIA mailserv filters?

[Caml-list] Who controls INRIA mailserv filters?

[Brandon J. Van Every]

I am irritated, yet again, that I cannot get my announcement for ML
S*attle to pass the mailserv filters.  Who do I e-mail to do something
about this?  I also want the words "Brand*n" and "S*attle" removed from
the bayesian filter.  They are an unreasonable detriment to my ongoing
organization of OCaml local discussion groups and mailing lists, and
frankly I'm suspicious that someone put them there deliberately.  Either
that or the bayesian filter is stupid enough to assume that any high
volume of posts must by needs be filtered.


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brand*n Van Every               S*attle, WA

Praise Be to the caml-list Bayesian filter! It blesseth
my postings, it is evil crap!  evil crap!  Bigarray!
Unboxed overhead group!  Wondering!  chant chant chant...

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Re: [Caml-list] Who controls INRIA mailserv filters?

[Diego Olivier Fernandez Pons]

    Bonjour,

> I am irritated, yet again, that I cannot get my announcement for ML
> S*attle to pass the mailserv filters.

Your announcements and more generally speaking most of your posts have
very low 'technical' content. You spend much more time discussing
general considerations on Caml than specific technical problems.

It is then not very surprising that a bayesian filter find your post
quite strange with respect to usual caml-list traffic.

> frankly I'm suspicious that someone put them there deliberately.

Someone at Cristal group will surely answer to that one, but in my
opinion it is just 'delirium tremens' or paranoïa if you prefer.

Consider also there might be caml users who do not want undesirable
emails to arrive by the caml-list. And I am one of those.

My advice : make you posts more technical.


        Diego Olivier

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RE: [Caml-list] Who controls INRIA mailserv filters?

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Diego Olivier wrote:
>
> My advice : make you posts more technical.

What's getting filtered are announces of ML S*attle, which is legitimate
traffic.  That means it contains some secret problem word I don't know
about.  Once I started using my anti-bayesian signature, all my other
posts have been getting through just fine.

Also do you really believe this bayesian filter retrains if I exercise
"good behavior?"  I don't; I think it's dumb as bricks.  In any event I
don't care about your personal tastes as to what constitutes "good
behavior."  When I look back over my posts, I see sufficient technical
content.  You may not like business or organizational issues, or the
kinds of theatrics they can precipitate, but that's the growing pains of
any language.  You show me a serious caml-biz list, and I will take the
traffic there.  Until then, you're stuck with me here.

The point of a bayesian filter is to eliminate naykid laydees and
whatnot, not censor as a pseudo-moderator.  I hope nobody ever arrives
at the world view that this postblocking nonsense I'm experiencing is a
legitimate judgement of content.  That would be a sad day for diversity
of opinion, or frankly, for human intelligence.  And with that, I recite
the liturgy:


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brand*n Van Every               S*attle, WA

Praise Be to the caml-list Bayesian filter! It blesseth
my postings, it is evil crap!  evil crap!  Bigarray!
Unboxed overhead group!  Wondering!  chant chant chant...

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RE: [Caml-list] Who controls INRIA mailserv filters?

[don groves]

At 13:29 8/11/2004, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>Diego Olivier wrote:
> >
> > My advice : make you posts more technical.
>
>What's getting filtered are announces of ML S*attle, which is legitimate
>traffic.


Maybe if you spelled Seattle correctly the filter would pass it.
Most, if not all, words with embedded non-alpha characters these
days are ads for V!agr@ or C!@lis so the filter gets trained on those.
--
dg



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RE: [Caml-list] Who controls INRIA mailserv filters?

[don groves]

At 14:22 8/11/2004, don groves wrote:
>At 13:29 8/11/2004, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>Diego Olivier wrote:
>> >
>> > My advice : make you posts more technical.
>>
>>What's getting filtered are announces of ML S*attle, which is legitimate
>>traffic.
>
>
>Maybe if you spelled Seattle correctly the filter would pass it.
>Most, if not all, words with embedded non-alpha characters these
>days are ads for V!agr@ or C!@lis so the filter gets trained on those.
>--
>dg


Nope, that's not it ;)
--
dg


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RE: [Caml-list] Who controls INRIA mailserv filters?

[Brandon J. Van Every]

don groves wrote:
> At 14:22 8/11/2004, don groves wrote:
> >At 13:29 8/11/2004, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> >
> >Maybe if you spelled S*attle correctly the filter would pass it.
> >Most, if not all, words with embedded non-alpha characters these
> >days are ads for V!agr@ or C!@lis so the filter gets trained
> on those.
>
> Nope, that's not it ;)

I am unsure of your antecedant, so I'm unsure what you mean by your
followup.

If you look at the X-Sp*m header of your 2 posts, you will see a list of
words.  Those with high values like 99's increase the likelihood that
your post will be classified as sp*m.  That is why I use an asterisk
with them.  The problem words in your own posts are:

  brand*n
  spell*d
  s*attle
  agggggr (only 1 g, probably part of vairga (letters transposed to
protect us all))
  addddds (only 1 d)
  traff*c

Bear in mind that each and every one of my posts carries an automatic
strike against me.  Even though I'm willing to use Brand*n in my
signature, I'm totally unwilling to create a separate e-mail identity
just for caml-list.  So every one of my posts has 1 correctly spelled
occurrance of Brand*n in it.

I bet, furthermore, that you will not see the word S*attle (correctly
spelled) in the X-sp*m header of this post.  This would disprove your
claim about * being a red flag for the filter, unless the filter does
not in fact report full information about how it makes its decisions.


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brand*n Van Every               S*attle, WA

Praise Be to the caml-list Bayesian filter! It blesseth
my postings, it is evil crap!  evil crap!  Bigarray!
Unboxed overhead group!  Wondering!  chant chant chant...

-------------------
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Re: [Caml-list] Who controls INRIA mailserv filters?

[Sven Luther]

On Thu, Aug 12, 2004 at 12:36:02AM -0700, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> don groves wrote:
> > At 14:22 8/11/2004, don groves wrote:
> > >At 13:29 8/11/2004, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> > >
> > >Maybe if you spelled S*attle correctly the filter would pass it.
> > >Most, if not all, words with embedded non-alpha characters these
> > >days are ads for V!agr@ or C!@lis so the filter gets trained
> > on those.
> >
> > Nope, that's not it ;)
> 
> I am unsure of your antecedant, so I'm unsure what you mean by your
> followup.
> 
> If you look at the X-Sp*m header of your 2 posts, you will see a list of
> words.  Those with high values like 99's increase the likelihood that
> your post will be classified as sp*m.  That is why I use an asterisk
> with them.  The problem words in your own posts are:
> 
>   brand*n
>   spell*d
>   s*attle
>   agggggr (only 1 g, probably part of vairga (letters transposed to
> protect us all))
>   addddds (only 1 d)
>   traff*c
> 
> Bear in mind that each and every one of my posts carries an automatic
> strike against me.  Even though I'm willing to use Brand*n in my
> signature, I'm totally unwilling to create a separate e-mail identity
> just for caml-list.  So every one of my posts has 1 correctly spelled
> occurrance of Brand*n in it.
> 
> I bet, furthermore, that you will not see the word S*attle (correctly
> spelled) in the X-sp*m header of this post.  This would disprove your
> claim about * being a red flag for the filter, unless the filter does
> not in fact report full information about how it makes its decisions.

Bah, just do as spammers do, and quote a considerable portion of one of
Xavier's posts to this list as a signature. Works like a charm for spammers to
defeat bayesian filters, so should be ok for you too.

Friendly,

Sven Luther

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RE: [Caml-list] Who controls INRIA mailserv filters?

[Diego Olivier Fernandez Pons]

    Bonjour,

> What's getting filtered are announces of ML S*attle, which is
> legitimate traffic

[...]

> Also do you really believe this bayesian filter retrains if I
> exercise "good behavior?"  I don't; I think it's dumb as bricks.

[...]

> You may not like business or organizational issues, or the kinds of
> theatrics they can precipitate, but that's the growing pains of any
> language

The point is not what I (or whoever) think but what the bayesian
filter does or does not filter. It is _just_ a bayesian filter, not a
semantic based natural language parser.

When I recommend you to make your post more technical it means :

- adding blocks of Caml code in your signature instead of the current
one that just says the Caml filter is a crap (exercice : make a Caml
program that chooses randomly 20 lines of code in the Caml compiler
and adds them to your signature)

- using more specifically Caml oriented words - something like "In the
next Seattle meeting we will discuss how inclusion polymorphism /
functors < add technical content here > can be applied to 3D rendering
for real-time games < add technical content here >"


        Diego Olivier

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RE: [Caml-list] Who controls INRIA mailserv filters?

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Diego Olivier
>
> When I recommend you to make your post more technical it means :
>
> - adding blocks of Caml code in your signature instead of the current
> one that just says the Caml filter is a crap (exercice : make a Caml
> program that chooses randomly 20 lines of code in the Caml compiler
> and adds them to your signature)

Not a bad idea, and less audacious than using Xavier as my trojan.  :-)
Testfiring now.

> - using more specifically Caml oriented words - something like "In the
> next Seattle meeting we will discuss how inclusion polymorphism /
> functors < add technical content here > can be applied to 3D rendering
> for real-time games < add technical content here >"

I'm not interested in watering down the brevity and clarity of the
announcement.  We meet *in person* to discuss such things.


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA


// return an array of 100 packed tuples
temps
  int $[tvar0][2*100]; // what the c function needs
  value $[tvar1]; // one int
  value $[tvar2]; // one tuple
  int $[tvar3] // loop control var
oncePre
eachPre
  $[cvar0]=&($[tvar0][0]);
eachPost
  $[lvar0] = alloc(2*100, 0 /*NB: zero-tagged block*/ );
  for(int $[tvar3]=0;$[tvar3]<100;$[tvar3]++) {
    $[tvar2] = alloc_tuple(2);
    $[tvar1] = Val_int($[cvar0][0+2*$[tvar3]]);
    Store_field($[tvar2],0,$[tvar1]);
    $[tvar1] = Val_int($[cvar0][1]);
    Store_field($[tvar2],1,$[tvar1+2*$[tvar3]]);
    Array_store($[lvar0],$[tvar3],$[tvar0]);
  }
oncePost

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Re: [Caml-list] Who controls INRIA mailserv filters?

[Xavier Leroy]

> I am irritated, yet again, that I cannot get my announcement for ML
> S*attle to pass the mailserv filters.  Who do I e-mail to do something
> about this?  I also want the words "Brand*n" and "S*attle" removed from
> the bayesian filter.  They are an unreasonable detriment to my ongoing
> organization of OCaml local discussion groups and mailing lists, and
> frankly I'm suspicious that someone put them there deliberately.

Don't get paranoid, please.  If we wanted to prevent you from posting
on this list, you'd be blacklisted for good and none of your posts
would show up.  That happened once for a really abusive poster.  Your
messages aren't abusive, just very repetitive, devoid of technical
content, and full of misconceptions.  Some of your recent Usenet
postings left me shaking my head in disbelief, not knowing whether to
laugh or cry.  But again that's not reason for blacklisting.

It's amusing (as usual) to look at why your announcements are
rejected.  Below are the words on which the filter latched, thinly
disguised.  First attempt:

b r a n d o n : 99
m e e t s : 99
s t u m b l i n g : 01
c a p i t o l : 99
s t u m b l i n g : 01
1 6 3 5: 99
r e s t a u r a n t : 99
s p e c i a l t y : 99
s p e c i a l t y : 99
p a r k i n g : 99
c a p i t o l : 99
p a r k i n g : 99
c a m l -l i s t : 01
b a y e s i a n : 01
c r a p : 01 

Second attempt: 

b r a n d o n : 99
m e e t s : 99
s t u m b l i n g : 01
c a p i t o l : 99
y a h : 99
s t u m b l i n g : 01
1 6 3 5: 99
r e s t a u r a n t : 99
s p e c i a l t y : 99
s p e c i a l t y : 99
p a r k i n g : 99
c a p i t o l : 99
p a r k i n g : 99
c a m l -l i s t : 01
b a y e s i a n: 01 

Two things are clear here: the filter think that discussions of food
and restaurants aren't on topic here; moreover, your attempt to
disguise Yahoo into something else clearly backfired.  If you write
like spammers, you'll be filtered like spammers, that's for sure.

My feeling is that the filter is doing its job quite well (if it
wasn't, there would be several dozens spams a day on this list) and
the last thing I wish to do is offset its delicate balance.  Besides,
I have more interesting things to do.  

Finally, my parents taught me not to use "I want" in polite company,
so I find your demands somewhat rude.  Posting to caml-list isn't a
right, it's a privilege.

Why don't you just put the details of your meeting on a web page and
post a short message "Next meeting on <such date>, see http://URL for
practical details"?  You do realize that > 95% of the subscribers don't
leave in Seattle and couldn't care less about the delicacies and car
park available there, right?

In one of your several follow-ups, you add:

> When I look back over my posts, I see sufficient technical
> content.  You may not like business or organizational issues, or the
> kinds of theatrics they can precipitate, but that's the growing pains of
> any language.  You show me a serious caml-biz list, and I will take the
> traffic there.  Until then, you're stuck with me here.

Sorry if I'm going to flame you, but you should be aware of the following:

- I and many other caml-list regulars don't see sufficient technical
  content.  Your grasp of technical stuff seems quite thin.
- I and many other caml-list regulars don't wish to discuss business
  issues with you.  I don't discuss business on open mailing lists.
- I and many other caml-list regulars don't like your theatrics.
  This isn't Actor's studio.
- The growing pains you mention weren't apparent to us before you
  started making such a noise on this list.
- You're most welcome to create your caml-biz list and discuss whatever
  you want there.  Actually, I feel you aren't interested in discussions
  as much as in asserting your preconceptions, which makes you prime
  material for blogging.
- As I explained above, posting to this list isn't a right, so we
  are not at all "stuck with you here".

Thanks for your attention.

- Xavier Leroy

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[Caml-list] OCaml growing pains

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Xavier Leroy wrote:
> Some of your recent Usenet
> postings left me shaking my head in disbelief, not knowing whether to
> laugh or cry.

I was going to reply privately, taking this comment of yours in stride.
I was composing my reply inline, dealing with some industrial growth
issues.  When I got farther down in your post, I realized how nasty your
response actually was, and how disinterested you are in some things I'm
interested in.  I don't take public nastiness sitting down, so here's my
reply.

> Finally, my parents taught me not to use "I want" in polite company,
> so I find your demands somewhat rude.  Posting to caml-list isn't a
> right, it's a privilege.

Having posts blocked for stupid reasons by machines is rude.  I hope you
don't start entertaining the notion that getting exasperated at stupid
machines is uncalled for.

> Why don't you just put the details of your meeting on a web page and
> post a short message "Next meeting on <such date>, see http://URL for
> practical details"?

- people don't click on URLs when they're busy.

> You do realize that > 95% of the subscribers don't
> leave in Seattle and couldn't care less about the delicacies and car
> park available there, right?

- people visit Seattle from other cities and move there
- people need motives to come to meetings, i.e. location, parking, beer
- establishing critical mass in tech hubs is important to language
growth
- when other cities finally want to do it, they know who to contact
- repetition is the key to all learning
- announces every 3 weeks aren't anything out of anyone's life
- those that don't care can skip it upon reading the subject line

This is called getting things done.  Where's your index of local user
groups?  Where are the announces?  There is nothing at
http://caml.inria.fr at all.  What transmission vehicle if not
caml-list?

To grow, OCaml needs more than 1 mailing list devoted to the
uber-technical.  Two attitudes you could take here.  (1) "Fine, Brand*n.
Go start all your own lists.  Knock yourself out."  (2) "Yes actually
INRIA would like to facilitate these efforts to grow OCaml."

> - I and many other caml-list regulars don't wish to discuss business
>   issues with you.  I don't discuss business on open mailing lists.

That's definitely not an open source attitude.  I would say that Python
and Perl have more powerful models of business promotion than the
'closed doors' model you say you prefer.

> - The growing pains you mention weren't apparent to us before you
>   started making such a noise on this list.

If you do not see the growing pains in OCaml, it is because you're not
much interested in issues of industrialization and evangelism.  On this
list I have heard people discussing the standard library and what
INRIA's role should be with it.  Someone tried to volunteer a paid
compiler guy, so that they could get some business insurance on what's
happening with OCaml.  People still think http://www.ocaml.org/ is the
proper website, and I've seen no movement on that issue since I've been
on this list.

You are at a pre-Python level of industrialization.  Python is on every
programmer's lips, but commands a measly 2% market share (to be
generous).  It has a gazillion libraries that OCaml doesn't have, yet
still lacks glaringly in large scale desktop applications development
and 3D graphics.  It can't mount a business-friendly marketing campaign
because of the techies currently in charge of it.  Whereas OCaml is in
the "What's that?" stage.  So if Python has growing pains, you have
growing pains.  Unless your attitude is similar to Matthias Blume's,
that SML/NJ is only good for publishing papers for other academics.

> - You're most welcome to create your caml-biz list and
>   discuss whatever you want there.  Actually, I feel you
>   aren't interested in discussions as much as in
>   asserting your preconceptions, which makes you prime
>   material for blogging.

A gratuitous piece of managerial theory for you today:
http://www.teams.org.uk/shaper.htm

> - As I explained above, posting to this list isn't a right, so we
>   are not at all "stuck with you here".

But what responsibility do you feel, Xavier, for building communities?
At the most basic level, are you only interested in people who play the
game your way, on your terms?  Or do you want OCaml to grow into
something big and really useful to tons of people?  If you want the
latter, you will have to cut people some slack.

> Thanks for your attention.

Do I receive yours in fair exchange, regarding communities?


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brand*n Van Every               S*attle, WA

Praise Be to the caml-list Bayesian filter! It blesseth
my postings, it is evil crap!  evil crap!  Bigarray!
Unboxed overhead group!  Wondering!  chant chant chant...


// return an array of 100 packed tuples
temps
  int $[tvar0][2*100]; // what the c function needs
  value $[tvar1]; // one int
  value $[tvar2]; // one tuple
  int $[tvar3] // loop control var
oncePre
eachPre
  $[cvar0]=&($[tvar0][0]);
eachPost
  $[lvar0] = alloc(2*100, 0 /*NB: zero-tagged block*/ );
  for(int $[tvar3]=0;$[tvar3]<100;$[tvar3]++) {
    $[tvar2] = alloc_tuple(2);
    $[tvar1] = Val_int($[cvar0][0+2*$[tvar3]]);
    Store_field($[tvar2],0,$[tvar1]);
    $[tvar1] = Val_int($[cvar0][1]);
    Store_field($[tvar2],1,$[tvar1+2*$[tvar3]]);
    Array_store($[lvar0],$[tvar3],$[tvar0]);
  }
oncePost

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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml growing pains

[Mikhail Fedotov]

Hi,

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

>Xavier Leroy wrote:
>  
>
>>Some of your recent Usenet
>>postings left me shaking my head in disbelief, not knowing whether to
>>laugh or cry.
>>    
>>
>
>I was going to reply privately, taking this comment of yours in stride.
>I was composing my reply inline, dealing with some industrial growth
>issues.  When I got farther down in your post, I realized how nasty your
>response actually was, and how disinterested you are in some things I'm
>interested in.  I don't take public nastiness sitting down, so here's my
>reply.
>
>  
>
Good points below, but it seems you are loosing a major one: you *never* 
can promote/advance
the langauge while going *against* its authors. (You can fork if of 
course, but then you'll be on
your own.)

When you are going against authors and mainters of some tool, it takes 
time. Your time. Their time.
The net result is the flame; good ideas are usually expressed in the 
beginning of discussion but
rarely developed any further.

That's one bad side, but there is another one which is even worse. While 
spending all time on
sorting out offences and stuff, you are not only loosing any chance to 
do anything good, but you
even do not know if you are actually able to help (read: develop trivial 
ideas like "community
should grow" into something implementable and implement them *without* 
going against tool
authors and maintainers, choose proper style and attitude for messages 
in *tech* list etc).

In addition, when all feedback from major players that you are receiving 
is negative, it means
that you are going in the wrong direction and for some reason fail to 
change it into the right one.

The net result may be that you become an expert at offences (and 
excuses) but can not do
anything when you have noone to battle with (i.e. when the real work 
starts). Been there myself,
lost a lot of time.

>- people visit Seattle from other cities and move there
>- people need motives to come to meetings, i.e. location, parking, beer
>- establishing critical mass in tech hubs is important to language
>growth
>- when other cities finally want to do it, they know who to contact
>- repetition is the key to all learning
>- announces every 3 weeks aren't anything out of anyone's life
>- those that don't care can skip it upon reading the subject line
>
>This is called getting things done.  Where's your index of local user
>groups?  Where are the announces?  There is nothing at
>http://caml.inria.fr at all.  What transmission vehicle if not
>caml-list?
>
>  
>

The most obvious is http://www.ocaml.org - it does not seem to be 
maintened anymore ( no mention
of 3.08 release), so *maybe* you have the chance to become the 
maintainer if you ask the
right people. Then you'll be able to show that you can do. :)

>// return an array of 100 packed tuples, just in case
>temps
>  int $[tvar0][2*100]; // what the c function needs
>  value $[tvar1]; // one int
>  value $[tvar2]; // one tuple
>  int $[tvar3] // loop control var
>oncePre
>eachPre
>  $[cvar0]=&($[tvar0][0]);
>eachPost
>  $[lvar0] = alloc(2*100, 0 /*NB: zero-tagged block*/ );
>  for(int $[tvar3]=0;$[tvar3]<100;$[tvar3]++) {
>    $[tvar2] = alloc_tuple(2);
>    $[tvar1] = Val_int($[cvar0][0+2*$[tvar3]]);
>    Store_field($[tvar2],0,$[tvar1]);
>    $[tvar1] = Val_int($[cvar0][1]);
>    Store_field($[tvar2],1,$[tvar1+2*$[tvar3]]);
>    Array_store($[lvar0],$[tvar3],$[tvar0]);
>  }
>oncePost
>  
>

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RE: [Caml-list] OCaml growing pains

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Mikhail Fedotov wrote:
>
> Good points below, but it seems you are loosing a major one:
> you *never* can promote/advance
> the langauge while going *against* its authors. (You can fork if of
> course, but then you'll be on your own.)

I doubt the historical evidence supports your claim.  For instance, I
seem to recall people who have disagreed with Guido Van Rossum about the
direction Python should take, who just went off and did stuff, and whose
work is now considered important to the Python community.  I don't
recall how adversarial those relationships were.  It is also certainly
possible to support a language in the absence of its canonical technical
list.  One just has to create a list that's more user friendly and that
has sufficient brains for the problems.  Languages with big audiences
certainly aren't restricted by 1 canonical technical list, for instance.
C, C++, Java, and C# are all quite beyond their authors.

> That's one bad side, but there is another one which is even
> worse. While spending all time on
> sorting out offences and stuff, you are not only loosing any
> chance to do anything good, but you
> even do not know if you are actually able to help (read:
> develop trivial ideas like "community
> should grow" into something implementable and implement them
> *without* going against tool
> authors and maintainers, choose proper style and attitude for
> messages in *tech* list etc).

I already learned from the Python Software Foundation crowd not to rely
upon the authority figures for anything.  Authority figures *could*
provide organizational resources, but they may choose not to do so, for
benign or malicious reasons.  In that event, one simply has to do it
oneself.  That's acutally preferrable if an authority figure isn't any
good at addressing a particular problem.

Open source is primarily about having a route around obstructions.  I
wouldn't be interested in OCaml if there weren't solutions to the worst
case scenarios.

> In addition, when all feedback from major players that you
> are receiving is negative, it means
> that you are going in the wrong direction and for some reason fail to
> change it into the right one.

I don't think so.  I think it shows where the major players are at in
their thinking and tastes.  OCaml is not this popular language, so why
should we assume its major players know best about how to grow it?

I've encountered tons of crabby Python developers who don't want to hear
about business or language growth.  In fact, many of them explicitly say
they want the language to stay small so that they won't have to deal
with... idiots, or whatever other horrible thing they think would happen
if something pierced their personal techno-bubble.  It's a pattern of
introversion among techies.  I don't easily fathom that mentality
myself.  I see money and jobs working on what people actually want to
work on.  Part of the problem may be that the most introverted have
already solved this problem for themselves, and don't really want
anything interfering with their pleasurable status quo.

biz-focused mailing lists are indeed better for the growth discussions.
I'm just not ready to start such a list yet.  I was ready to start an
OCaml Games mailing list, so I did so.  I was ready to start ML S*attle,
so I did so.  If OCaml proves to be commercially viable for me, then I
will start a biz list about it.

> >This is called getting things done.  Where's your index of local user
> >groups?  Where are the announces?  There is nothing at
> >http://caml.inria.fr at all.  What transmission vehicle if not
> >caml-list?
>
> The most obvious is http://www.ocaml.org - it does not seem to be
> maintened anymore ( no mention
> of 3.08 release), so *maybe* you have the chance to become the
> maintainer if you ask the
> right people.  Then you'll be able to show that you can do. :)

You put a smiley, so maybe you don't mean this so seriously.  But I have
to observe: I'm not here to spend buckets of man hours to gratuitously
prove my credibility.  I look for the simple solution and implement it.
It's not rational to take on the burdens of acquiring and maintaining
someone else's website when all I really want, right now, is a
transmission vector for ML S*attle announces.  If I thought caml-list
couldn't serve that role, I'd start another mailing list.  As it is, at
least I do have comp.lang.ml and comp.lang.functional (without
controversy).

I'm certainly not ready to become OCaml's official webadmin.  People
around here don't even like me, so I hardly feel obligated to do some
Herculean, unappreciated task to benefit them.  Besides, if you look at
my website you'll realize how weak my webadmin skills are.  If I have
success with OCaml in the arenas I most care about, I'll organize
*other* people to take on such burdens.

There is one community organizational question I can address
immediately, however.  So, I will do that in a new thread, leaving
behind this more incendiary conversation.  I don't personally have a
problem with incendiary conversations, as sometimes the pointed needs to
be voiced.  But, they do lead people to flames, as people often don't
take the pointed very well.


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brand*n Van Every               S*attle, WA

Praise Be to the caml-list Bayesian filter! It blesseth
my postings, it is evil crap!  evil crap!  Bigarray!
Unboxed overhead group!  Wondering!  chant chant chant...

// return an array of 100 packed tuples
temps
  int $[tvar0][2*100]; // what the c function needs
  value $[tvar1]; // one int
  value $[tvar2]; // one tuple
  int $[tvar3] // loop control var
oncePre
eachPre
  $[cvar0]=&($[tvar0][0]);
eachPost
  $[lvar0] = alloc(2*100, 0 /*NB: zero-tagged block*/ );
  for(int $[tvar3]=0;$[tvar3]<100;$[tvar3]++) {
    $[tvar2] = alloc_tuple(2);
    $[tvar1] = Val_int($[cvar0][0+2*$[tvar3]]);
    Store_field($[tvar2],0,$[tvar1]);
    $[tvar1] = Val_int($[cvar0][1]);
    Store_field($[tvar2],1,$[tvar1+2*$[tvar3]]);
    Array_store($[lvar0],$[tvar3],$[tvar0]);
  }
oncePost




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RE: [Caml-list] OCaml growing pains

[skaller]

On Fri, 2004-08-13 at 07:30, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

> I don't think so.  I think it shows where the major players are at in
> their thinking and tastes.  OCaml is not this popular language, so why
> should we assume its major players know best about how to grow it?

I think you need to consider that the INRIA team's goals
are closer to 'showing it is possible for a well typed
functional language developed using theory to actually
also compile fast code fast' rather than 'taking over
from other industrial languages'.

Ocaml is great for writing language translators.
The *obvious* use for it for a game developer
is to write a game scripting language in it --
rather than try to write games directly in Ocaml.

That way you bypass all the problems, and get to
say how great Ocaml is for writing translators with :)

Oh yeah, did I mention before I've spent 5 years developing
such a tool already .. ?

-- 
John Skaller, mailto:skaller@users.sf.net
voice: 061-2-9660-0850, 
snail: PO BOX 401 Glebe NSW 2037 Australia
Checkout the Felix programming language http://felix.sf.net



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RE: [Caml-list] OCaml growing pains

[Brandon J. Van Every]

John Skaller wrote:
>
> I think you need to consider that the INRIA team's goals
> are closer to 'showing it is possible for a well typed
> functional language developed using theory to actually
> also compile fast code fast' rather than 'taking over
> from other industrial languages'.

It is considered.  Of course, others have other considerations.  Only a
closed source development model would keep people away from something
useful.

> Ocaml is great for writing language translators.
> The *obvious* use for it for a game developer
> is to write a game scripting language in it --
> rather than try to write games directly in Ocaml.

That's not obvious to me.  It runs afoul of the Yet Another Scripting
Language problem.  The game industry already has scripting languages
that aren't running so well on current hardware, like Lua, Python, and
Ruby.  Customizing the heck out of a language is seen, rightly, as a
waste of time.  It may be that programming tastes change as the game
industry becomes more sophisticated in its methods.  But people who can
envision, "This is how and *WHY* I should write a custom scripting
language for my game," and who can lead that to commercial advantage +
success, are not a dime a dozen right now.  Rather, we read postmortems
about how some employee blew the company's techno-wad on some half-baked
compiler he thought would be Kewl to implement.

What's obvious to me, is C++ is a low level language.  Most of the game
industry still uses it for performance reasons.  Show us something
higher level, that also has performance, and also library and tools
support, and you definitely have the possibility of a sea change from
C++.

It doesn't really matter if INRIA isn't worried about industrialization.
To a large degree, other parties can do that.  What matters, is that
INRIA doesn't try to majorly get in the way of it.

> That way you bypass all the problems, and get to
> say how great Ocaml is for writing translators with :)
>
> Oh yeah, did I mention before I've spent 5 years developing
> such a tool already .. ?

Right, but you don't have critical mass and OCaml does.  What would it
take for you to develop critical mass?  That's not a rhetorical
question, I'm wondering what you envision as your strategy.  Feel free
to e-mail me privately about it.


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brand*n Van Every               S*attle, WA

Praise Be to the caml-list Bayesian filter! It blesseth
my postings, it is evil crap!  evil crap!  Bigarray!
Unboxed overhead group!  Wondering!  chant chant chant...

// return an array of 100 packed tuples
temps
  int $[tvar0][2*100]; // what the c function needs
  value $[tvar1]; // one int
  value $[tvar2]; // one tuple
  int $[tvar3] // loop control var
oncePre
eachPre
  $[cvar0]=&($[tvar0][0]);
eachPost
  $[lvar0] = alloc(2*100, 0 /*NB: zero-tagged block*/ );
  for(int $[tvar3]=0;$[tvar3]<100;$[tvar3]++) {
    $[tvar2] = alloc_tuple(2);
    $[tvar1] = Val_int($[cvar0][0+2*$[tvar3]]);
    Store_field($[tvar2],0,$[tvar1]);
    $[tvar1] = Val_int($[cvar0][1]);
    Store_field($[tvar2],1,$[tvar1+2*$[tvar3]]);
    Array_store($[lvar0],$[tvar3],$[tvar0]);
  }
oncePost

-------------------
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Re: [Caml-list] OCaml growing pains

[Mikhail Fedotov]

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

>Mikhail Fedotov wrote:
>  
>
>>Good points below, but it seems you are loosing a major one:
>>you *never* can promote/advance
>>the langauge while going *against* its authors. (You can fork if of
>>course, but then you'll be on your own.)
>>    
>>
>
>I doubt the historical evidence supports your claim.
>
Conflicts are always forcing good/competent people to go away - go away 
from the conference,
go away from the site. Lowering quality of discussions. If only I'd get 
a buck for each such evidence...

> <>For instance, I seem to recall people who have disagreed with Guido 
> Van Rossum
> about the direction Python should take, who just went off and did 
> stuff, and whose
> work is now considered important to the Python community. 

You are doing exactly that I've said before - express good point in the 
beginning but going
in the wrong direction. I doubt  there is an analogy to the case with 
python (can not say for sure until
checked it myself), except when you are talking about technical details. 
And when you are talking
about those details, you are talking about something that do not know 
well with people who wrote
it and know from the top to the bottom.

>Authority figures *could* provide organizational resources
>

They simply might not have them.

>>In addition, when all feedback from major players that you
>>are receiving is negative, it means
>>that you are going in the wrong direction and for some reason fail to
>>change it into the right one.
>>    
>>
>
>I don't think so.
>

Symptoms match. The key method to find the blind spot is to formulate 
verifiable criteria
to ensure the correctness of your own statements and if the choice of 
topics to discuss is right.
The same about the desision to start the discussion at all.

As I've said, I've lost a lot of time on discussions like yours. 
Patterns are very clear and common.

>biz-focused mailing lists are indeed better for the growth discussions.
>I'm just not ready to start such a list yet.
>
I can not imagine its audience. Web pages with success stories and 
remarks about problems
solved should do the trick, and success stories are already there.

>I was ready to start an OCaml Games mailing list, so I did so.
>
Is there much of professional game developers, and they really want to 
share their
*confidential* technology ? I doubt it will be ever anything other than 
newbies list.

>I was ready to start ML S*attle, so I did so.
>
But even with starting it you've managed to bump into spam filter. :)

That's the curse I've been talking about - without good criterias to
verify that you are going in the right direction,  you are loosing
ability not to bump into things when you are finally trying to start
something, things that most normal people do not bump into.
Game list has questionable audience,  meeeting announce
bumps into the filter, your concerns about language features
bump into the luck of your experience with the language, and
you've even managed to go into conflict with Xavier when
he is not in position to address your questions in the manner
they are asked (i.e. completely wrong person for conflict,
such conflict is as pointles as it can be).

>>The most obvious is http://www.ocaml.org - it does not seem to be
>>maintened anymore ( no mention
>>of 3.08 release), so *maybe* you have the chance to become the
>>maintainer if you ask the
>>right people.  Then you'll be able to show that you can do. :)
>>    
>>
>
>You put a smiley, so maybe you don't mean this so seriously.
>

I just believe that you are spending so much time in those duscissions 
that you've
become so *rusty* that a lot of *newbies* can compete with you in any 
good thing
you might want to do, even if you are not a newbie yourself. There is 
one hell of
symptoms in your messages.

It is like being on a drug.

>Praise Be to the caml-list Bayesian filter! It blesseth
>my postings, it is evil crap!  evil crap!  Bigarray!
>Unboxed overhead group!  Wondering!  chant chant chant...
>
>// return an array of 100 packed tuples
>temps
>  int $[tvar0][2*100]; // what the c function needs
>  value $[tvar1]; // one int
>  value $[tvar2]; // one tuple
>  int $[tvar3] // loop control var
>oncePre
>eachPre
>  $[cvar0]=&($[tvar0][0]);
>eachPost
>  $[lvar0] = alloc(2*100, 0 /*NB: zero-tagged block*/ );
>  for(int $[tvar3]=0;$[tvar3]<100;$[tvar3]++) {
>    $[tvar2] = alloc_tuple(2);
>    $[tvar1] = Val_int($[cvar0][0+2*$[tvar3]]);
>    Store_field($[tvar2],0,$[tvar1]);
>    $[tvar1] = Val_int($[cvar0][1]);
>    Store_field($[tvar2],1,$[tvar1+2*$[tvar3]]);
>    Array_store($[lvar0],$[tvar3],$[tvar0]);
>  }
>oncePost
>  
>

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RE: [Caml-list] Who controls INRIA mailserv filters?

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Brandon J. Van Every
>
> > Two things are clear here: the filter think that discussions of food
> > and restaurants aren't on topic here; moreover, your attempt to
> > disguise Yahoo into something else clearly backfired.  If you write
> > like spammers, you'll be filtered like spammers, that's for sure.
>
> I did not discuss Yahoo.  Ergo, no attempt on my part to
> disguise anything.

I forgot that I did indeed do that, at 5 in the morning.


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brand*n Van Every               S*attle, WA

Praise Be to the caml-list Bayesian filter! It blesseth
my postings, it is evil crap!  evil crap!  Bigarray!
Unboxed overhead group!  Wondering!  chant chant chant...

-------------------
To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr
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