From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Original-To: caml-list@sympa.inria.fr Delivered-To: caml-list@sympa.inria.fr Received: from mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.83]) by sympa.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3765C7FE44 for ; Fri, 8 Jul 2016 18:50:54 +0200 (CEST) IronPort-PHdr: 9a23:Tb+rQh/qyzbHJP9uRHKM819IXTAuvvDOBiVQ1KB92ukcTK2v8tzYMVDF4r011RmSDN2dsKoP2raempujcFRI2YyGvnEGfc4EfD4+ouJSoTYdBtWYA1bwNv/gYn9yNs1DUFh44yPzahANS47AblHf6ke/8SQVUk2mc1EkfqKuQsWD04ye7KObw9XreQJGhT6wM/tZDS6dikHvjPQQmpZoMa0ryxHE8TNicuVSwn50dxrIx06vru/5xpNo8jxRtvQ97IYAFPyiJ+Vre4dFFywrOHwZ48jitB+LDVfepyhUbmJDox1UCg2NxhjgWJDg+n/rsfZ03SOTJ8vxXJg7XD2j6+FgTxq+2wkdMDtsymbdh9Zsi+p3oVqKoAd6xMaAeoafOeBieYvRfNgdXm9GGMFLWHoSUcuHc4ITAr9Zbq5jpI7nqg5L8EKz Authentication-Results: mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; spf=None smtp.pra=rdicosmo@gmail.com; spf=Pass smtp.mailfrom=rdicosmo@gmail.com; spf=None smtp.helo=postmaster@mail-wm0-f50.google.com Received-SPF: None (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of rdicosmo@gmail.com) identity=pra; client-ip=74.125.82.50; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="rdicosmo@gmail.com"; x-sender="rdicosmo@gmail.com"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible Received-SPF: Pass (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: domain of rdicosmo@gmail.com designates 74.125.82.50 as permitted sender) identity=mailfrom; client-ip=74.125.82.50; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="rdicosmo@gmail.com"; x-sender="rdicosmo@gmail.com"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible; x-record-type="v=spf1" Received-SPF: None (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of postmaster@mail-wm0-f50.google.com) identity=helo; client-ip=74.125.82.50; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="rdicosmo@gmail.com"; x-sender="postmaster@mail-wm0-f50.google.com"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: A0BmAACX2H9XfzJSfUpbhBR2BqdihR2DfSqCZYcmgj+EYTsRAQEBAQEBAQERAQEJCwsJHzGCMoITCAEFEhEPAQ0BFBkLAQMMAQUFGAICBQQdAgIPBQ0TAQUBAQkEARMTEgIOhSeCTQMXBAUFoQGBMT4xizuERAWGFicDCoQbAQEBAQYBAQEBARoCBhBxgxuBE4RCgQOCQ4R/K4IvBYZSDE1vhWqKXDSFI2mCeoM1ggqBdE6CMIFagn2FbYgaAhWGHjCBDzRWgVMcgU5sAYkxAQEB X-IPAS-Result: A0BmAACX2H9XfzJSfUpbhBR2BqdihR2DfSqCZYcmgj+EYTsRAQEBAQEBAQERAQEJCwsJHzGCMoITCAEFEhEPAQ0BFBkLAQMMAQUFGAICBQQdAgIPBQ0TAQUBAQkEARMTEgIOhSeCTQMXBAUFoQGBMT4xizuERAWGFicDCoQbAQEBAQYBAQEBARoCBhBxgxuBE4RCgQOCQ4R/K4IvBYZSDE1vhWqKXDSFI2mCeoM1ggqBdE6CMIFagn2FbYgaAhWGHjCBDzRWgVMcgU5sAYkxAQEB X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="5.28,330,1464645600"; d="scan'208";a="226113238" Received: from mail-wm0-f50.google.com ([74.125.82.50]) by mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP/TLS/AES128-GCM-SHA256; 08 Jul 2016 18:50:52 +0200 Received: by mail-wm0-f50.google.com with SMTP id f126so17706230wma.1 for ; Fri, 08 Jul 2016 09:50:52 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=sender:date:from:to:cc:subject:message-id:references:mime-version :content-disposition:content-transfer-encoding:in-reply-to :user-agent; bh=HZTaievCE0vteSlG1aFvikJLIK1VDtgTv/oK1TPKzZk=; b=Z4V4ZKS2o0Ip9tZDLcH77/N4GhsccViuHUIgyDzAPBbYeQTF4BrKViHEaTt4vWBusy MGXBMoEXtwNmJm8B0wJ0yiNcHRf6ScIS0DNbzqku96m0U+MIvNWldmM2hMx6dpdRXD/K rzXMiSFfOzJ+S6oV5y0FSP1WSRuAwCYnJFBRxQxW/P8HY94wDu6LH7e2rl3tKqewgTUQ iFIr6QfNYLopKFxuKP7Xrl/u6ROaVYTNeHcO+dI8MZZMWyKvw8mfo2rDy3LJMNaGjdGX wmk9O/X8xCg5HropodY7hbm1pBMCyNJDp8DZxlx7mi0JR9y4JwZNLsfbunA6UQuwT/42 hhww== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20130820; h=x-gm-message-state:sender:date:from:to:cc:subject:message-id :references:mime-version:content-disposition :content-transfer-encoding:in-reply-to:user-agent; bh=HZTaievCE0vteSlG1aFvikJLIK1VDtgTv/oK1TPKzZk=; b=ISHkGurcW2Pq+JTPcWnRivsWCl7c3rrEkYfB8rLryJAFwFB4WGls9SUCoGMu56V1Ad m9RiarPMIZHxgx+E5SfsUJD5HX3yaT4yVhSyxAQ8/oooTgfbDgCZ/G6oga8uPx5RcCGe QDhQuI+22HhrMzn0APiiVD9LDi3VFhNIyqCzLQOxfh/pbiJuYABSz6TpkmgVgfm4glIX JS7hnTx8WwPL3fzvSHyE0WOYNn2K7Tt6/v3nA8JldoSohyKJ08E5KUy57fw7hXjcq8ow cTPvOpVrLbrIMmYHm9lLsyYLCjWxTDXJ3HwHu+ME51SJErz4/5Vdbmk/WvGqbMqmXCEt XOUw== X-Gm-Message-State: ALyK8tJfnpRAt+c6wgm9tdVua4oyQlikztL12zWgB7Qlv6ubRMiCClcsYDmtDcZ88I/Nxg== X-Received: by 10.28.135.69 with SMTP id j66mr4483502wmd.10.1467996651982; Fri, 08 Jul 2016 09:50:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from traveler (bny92-3-81-56-44-163.fbx.proxad.net. [81.56.44.163]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id 12sm3846747wmj.19.2016.07.08.09.50.50 (version=TLS1_2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 bits=256/256); Fri, 08 Jul 2016 09:50:50 -0700 (PDT) Sender: Roberto Di Cosmo Received: from dicosmo by traveler with local (Exim 4.87) (envelope-from ) id 1bLYzJ-0004sn-PH; Fri, 08 Jul 2016 18:50:49 +0200 Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 18:50:49 +0200 From: Roberto Di Cosmo To: Yotam Barnoy Cc: "caml-list@inria.fr" Message-ID: <20160708165049.GB17655@traveler> References: <20160704144512.GB2458@Razor> <20160708153309.GC11491@traveler> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.6.0 (2016-04-01) Subject: Re: [Caml-list] how to encourage adoption of OCaml? Hi Yotam, I basically agree with you on this... my point is simply that it is a mistake to evaluate a technology only based on how trendy the communication and collaboration tools around it are: QWERTY keyboards are extremely trendy and have a great community, yet they are a bad technology. Unfortunately, the world *is* an unfair place, and it is definitely not enough to actually have good technology, if one misses the proper communication and collaboration tools, as well as the right packaging (pun intended). That's why I found Douane's fresh external point of view on our beloved language quite interesting, and I'm fully in line with the idea of bringing new, more modern communication and collaboration tools into play to make sure OCaml will not stay the Dvorak of programming languages. -- Roberto P.S.: there is also, of course, an issue of herding cats, and managing egos, but that's another story :-) On Fri, Jul 08, 2016 at 12:25:58PM -0400, Yotam Barnoy wrote: > Roberto, you make a good point, but I'd like to make the counterpoint > that what you call 'image' is almost as important as, if not even more > important, than what you call 'substance'. > > > -Yotam > > On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 11:33 AM, Roberto Di Cosmo wrote: > > Hi Duane, > > thanks for your message: I found it is a very interesting outsider's point of view. > > > > I would just like to remark that what you point out is more along an "image" > > dimension, than a "substance" one. > > > > The world is full of exciting "modern" programming languages that change syntax > > and semantics every couple of months, or that force you to write zillions of > > "modern" unit tests just to make sure you did not mix integers with strings, > > while in the ML (and OCaml world) we just keep writing safe and elegant code > > since the 1980's. > > > > If you scratch a bit the surface, it's easy to see that a lof of the "new" > > exciting technology around is actually "has been", while the "old" technology > > underlying OCaml is actually "revolutionary". > > > > If you share this point of view, please come along and lend a hand, help > > us become more fashionable, and help OCaml get an "image" that better > > correspond to its great "substance" > > > > Cheers > > > > -- > > Roberto > > > > P.S.: by the way, it's inria.fr, not infria.fr, or, in old technology > > terms, s/infria/inria/g :-) > > > > On Fri, Jul 08, 2016 at 09:16:09AM -0600, Duane Johnson wrote: > >> > >> On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Gabriel Scherer > >> wrote: > >> > >> Adoption is interesting but, as Tony Hoare put it, we are not fashion > >> designers. The best thing I can think of is to communicate more and better, > >> talk about the cool world that is being done in the OCaml communities, and > >> importantly talking about it outside it. Supporting software projects that > >> have a potential for impact outside the OCaml community is also key -- Coq, > >> MLdonkey, Coccinelle, Flow, the SLAM static verifier toolkit, just to name > >> a few. > >> > >> > >> > >> As someone who just signed up to this mailing list, may I offer some > >> observations? > >> > >> - my first impression of OCaml community was through reddit.com/r/ocaml. As a > >> reddit user, I would rank /r/ocaml as "barely alive but stable"--in other > >> words, the upvotes-per-thread there are in the single digits and low > >> double-digits showing people exist there, but it is not a thriving community. > >> - next, I tried to find a google group. It was hard to find any substantial and > >> popular OCaml groups there. There was an OCaml aggregation list, but it wasn't > >> clear that it was a discussion group. My first thought was, Is there no mailing > >> list? I searched around and found the infria.fr domain. To an outsider, this > >> lends no credibility or brand-name familiarity. Not only is the web domain > >> unfamiliar, but the website does not look welcoming--it appears to be out of > >> the 90s. > >> - signing up for a mailing list is slow and unrewarding. I'd much rather sign > >> up for a more modern community technology like reddit, facebook, slack, or > >> google groups. > >> - I clicked "Info" to get more info about the mailing list on infria.fr and it > >> says "Private information" inside a white bubble. Ok... > >> - I looked for a chat community, and IRC is the only option. This signals "old > >> tech community" to me. Slack or gitter.im is a more inclusive, modern > >> community. In order to participate in IRC, one must always be connected. This > >> makes it more difficult for outsiders to come in and feel like they can 'catch > >> up' on the conversation (Yes, I know there are chat logs, but this feature is > >> not an integrated part of IRC). > >> > >> In summary, all of the signals that I usually depend on to evaluate the > >> community around a technology are either weak or give me the impression of "old > >> and barely stable". New, exciting technologies that I've seen tend to embrace > >> and tap in to existing community platforms (slack, reddit, github, gitbook, > >> google groups) in order to leverage the platform and amplify their advertising > >> signal. > >> > >> Duane Johnson > >> > >> > >> On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Gabriel Scherer > >> wrote: > >> > >> > Do others on this list feel the ramp to OCaml adoption is smoother than > >> my impression suggests? > >> > >> I can't speak for "adoption", but I think that you have been very kind as > >> far as user experience is concerned, that it is probably worse than you > >> suggest. > >> > >> We discussed some of these issues a few month ago in a thread launched by > >> Hendrik Bloom: > >> > >> Is OCaml for experienced beginners? > >> Hendrik Bloom, December 2015 > >> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list/2015-12/msg00077.html > >> > >> I gave a few remarks on the evolution of the OCaml ecosystem on the period > >> I know of that you may be interested in: > >> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list/2015-12/msg00110.html > >> > >> I think "adoption" and "usability" are interlinked but separate issues. > >> > >> Getting adoption distributes the number of people interesting in helping on > >> usability, so it tends to improve usability, but I tend to think that the > >> second is actually the more interesting, important goal to aim at. > >> > >> Adoption is interesting but, as Tony Hoare put it, we are not fashion > >> designers. The best thing I can think of is to communicate more and better, > >> talk about the cool world that is being done in the OCaml communities, and > >> importantly talking about it outside it. Supporting software projects that > >> have a potential for impact outside the OCaml community is also key -- Coq, > >> MLdonkey, Coccinelle, Flow, the SLAM static verifier toolkit, just to name > >> a few. > >> > >> Regarding usability, I think the tooling ecosystem is too complex today. If > >> I wanted to bootstrap a beginner to do stuff I would have to tell them > >> about the OCaml compiler tools (ocamlc, ocamlopt), ocamlfind, a build > >> system (omake or ocamlbuild for example), oasis, Merlin, opam, and get them > >> to learn either Vim or Emacs. That's a bit too much and even with the > >> plethora of tools there are problems we haven't really solved yet -- for > >> example, how to avoid module name conflicts. > >> I think a lot more work is required, both incremental improvements and a > >> few grand redesigns, before we reach a comfortable ecosystem where starting > >> an OCaml project feels like a breeze. That's what I would aim at. > >> > >> > >> Who here is excited about making OCaml approachable to newcomers? Where > >> is the main ongoing work on this? Who are the main leaders from this > >> perspective? > >> > >> > >> This is an interesting question. To my knowledge, no one is specifically > >> focused on this mightily important question. But it's fair to assume that > >> we have no "usability team" today, it's more a distributed collection of > >> efforts going in all directions from various people, for example: > >> > >> - Gerd Stolpmann did a lot of work on the early language tooling, notably > >> GODI (an earlier ocaml-specific package manager) and ocamlfind, and also > >> kept very high documentation standards that are an example to follow. > >> > >> - Sylvain le Gall's work on OASIS helps a lot of developers do their > >> packaging by encapsulating, in particular, the knowledge of what to install > >> where (not a simple question). > >> > >> - The OPAM team as a whole, as well as the maintainers of the public opam > >> repository, have done tremendous work making OCaml software easy to install > >> and deploy. (Windows is still of a sore point, but there is progress in > >> that area. It's a distinct possibility that the OCaml ecosystem will become > >> nice to use on Windows before Windows disappears or gets a real Unix > >> userland.) > >> > >> I would personally be interested in helping someone with a holistic > >> approach to usability devote as much of their time as they can. (I think > >> there are some sources of funding that could be considered, but nothing > >> very certain; from a crowd-funding perspective I would be glad to pay €30 > >> a month to fund such a position.) I think this is a difficult position > >> because there is a lot of thankless grunt work implied, and arguably it's > >> not a very career-advancing move. > >> > >> On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 8:57 AM, Dean Thompson > >> wrote: > >> > >> Thank you, everyone, for the responses and discussion. If there is > >> interest, I would still love to hear more thoughts about whether there > >> is a roadmap (either de facto from the community, or explicit from > >> leaders of the community) to foster broader adoption. > >> > >> I see that many organizations are making immense contributions to the > >> community: from language and ecosystem enhancements, to Real World > >> OCaml, to the OCaml Users and Developers Workshop. Technical progress > >> is rapid. But so far, to me, these wonderful contributions feel more > >> like giving back to the community for us to make what we can of them, > >> rather than anyone’s systematic effort to streamline broader uptake of > >> OCaml. > >> > >> These are the impressions of a newcomer. If there is interest, I would > >> love to hear more seasoned viewpoints. > >> > >> Dean > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management and archives: > >> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list > >> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners > >> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > > -- > > Roberto Di Cosmo > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Professeur (on leave at/detache a INRIA Roquencourt) > > IRIF E-mail : roberto@dicosmo.org > > Universite Paris Diderot Web : http://www.dicosmo.org > > Case 7014 Twitter : http://twitter.com/rdicosmo > > 5, Rue Thomas Mann > > F-75205 Paris Cedex 13 France > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Office location: > > > > Paris Diderot INRIA > > > > Bureau 3020 (3rd floor) Bureau C123 > > Batiment Sophie Germain Batiment C > > 8 place Aurélie Nemours 2, Rue Simone Iff > > Tel: +33 1 57 27 92 20 Tel: +33 1 80 49 44 42 > > > > Metro > > Bibliotheque F. Mitterrand Ligne 6: Dugommier > > ligne 14/RER C Ligne 14/RER A: Gare de Lyon > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > > GPG fingerprint 2931 20CE 3A5A 5390 98EC 8BFC FCCA C3BE 39CB 12D3 > > > > -- > > Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management and archives: > > https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list > > Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners > > Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs -- Roberto Di Cosmo ------------------------------------------------------------------ Professeur (on leave at/detache a INRIA Roquencourt) IRIF E-mail : roberto@dicosmo.org Universite Paris Diderot Web : http://www.dicosmo.org Case 7014 Twitter : http://twitter.com/rdicosmo 5, Rue Thomas Mann F-75205 Paris Cedex 13 France ------------------------------------------------------------------ Office location: Paris Diderot INRIA Bureau 3020 (3rd floor) Bureau C123 Batiment Sophie Germain Batiment C 8 place Aurélie Nemours 2, Rue Simone Iff Tel: +33 1 57 27 92 20 Tel: +33 1 80 49 44 42 Metro Bibliotheque F. Mitterrand Ligne 6: Dugommier ligne 14/RER C Ligne 14/RER A: Gare de Lyon ------------------------------------------------------------------ GPG fingerprint 2931 20CE 3A5A 5390 98EC 8BFC FCCA C3BE 39CB 12D3