Re: [Caml-list] language story on slashdot

[Chris Hecker <checker@d6.com>]

>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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