From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Delivered-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 48560BC88 for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2005 21:35:55 +0100 (CET) Received: from pauillac.inria.fr (pauillac.inria.fr [128.93.11.35]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j13KZsjU031793 for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2005 21:35:54 +0100 Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA24247 for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2005 21:35:54 +0100 (MET) Received: from mta09-winn.mailhost.ntl.com (smtpout17.mailhost.ntl.com [212.250.162.17]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j13KZrlS031790 for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2005 21:35:54 +0100 Received: from aamta04-winn.mailhost.ntl.com ([212.250.162.8]) by mta09-winn.mailhost.ntl.com with ESMTP id <20050203203553.VTBM29900.mta09-winn.mailhost.ntl.com@aamta04-winn.mailhost.ntl.com>; Thu, 3 Feb 2005 20:35:53 +0000 Received: from [80.4.70.84] by aamta04-winn.mailhost.ntl.com with ESMTP id <20050203203553.IYKM13480.aamta04-winn.mailhost.ntl.com@[80.4.70.84]>; Thu, 3 Feb 2005 20:35:53 +0000 Message-ID: <42028B27.6020503@ntlworld.com> Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 20:35:51 +0000 From: "chris.danx" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (X11/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Thomas Fischbacher Cc: Erik de Castro Lopo , caml-list@inria.fr Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Estimating the size of the ocaml community References: <891bd33905020213315a2ebb18@mail.gmail.com> <8008871f05020213362d21ba87@mail.gmail.com> <000f01c50971$baad4840$0100a8c0@mshome.net> <1107403128.32586.223.camel@pelican.wigram> <20050203173556.4acec1c5.ocaml-erikd@mega-nerd.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 42028B2A.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 42028B29.001 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 ocaml:01 wrote:01 ocaml:01 erlang:01 compiler:01 ntlworld:98 absorbed:98 eww:98 ...:98 lisp:01 portability:02 match:02 graphics:02 rarely:02 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 (2004-11-16) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=disabled version=3.0.2 X-Spam-Level: Thomas Fischbacher wrote: > Yes, indeed. I even learned to know a few people who did an Ocaml-related > PhD which afterwards got totally absorbed by the idea that C were the > only true and proper programming language. > > Huh. Eww... > > Anyway, this leaves us with a very interesting question: how many people > actually do believe in the value of Ocaml? I, for myself, use it whenever > it is the most appropriate tool for a job (usually, when portability is > an issue). This is sometimes the case, but more often than not, LISP > turned out to be a better choice for what I do. Sometimes it's Ocaml, sometimes it's Erlang or Oz, sometimes it's Ruby, etc. Very rarely do I find C a good match for the problem - it takes a certain level of skill to not screw up with C, a level I don't currently possess. I use OCaml as my language of choice for graphics work and some general purpose tasks. It's got several benefits over some languages, the compiler is pretty good and the community is fairly substantial. It has good library support and some decent tutorials, references. Chris