[Caml-list] language story on slashdot

[Caml-list] language story on slashdot

[leary]

Why not Ruby?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/08/1955209

Some good mentions of OCaml; perhaps a good place for more? :)
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Re: [Caml-list] language story on slashdot

[Chris Hecker]

>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 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.  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).

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.

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.

Chris


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Re: [Caml-list] language story on slashdot

[leary]

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

[Bruce Hoult]

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

[David McClain]

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

[dsf]

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

[Pierre Weis]

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

[John Max Skaller]

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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