From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id QAA21289; Fri, 19 Apr 2002 16:32:07 +0200 (MET DST) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id QAA21187 for ; Fri, 19 Apr 2002 16:32:06 +0200 (MET DST) X-SPAM-Warning: Sending machine is listed in blackholes.five-ten-sg.com Received: from dr2chase.org (pool-141-154-31-59.bos.east.verizon.net [141.154.31.59]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id g3JEW5102254 for ; Fri, 19 Apr 2002 16:32:05 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from Spooler by dr2chase.org (Mercury/32 v3.21c) ID MO00000A; 19 Apr 02 10:32:35 -0400 Received: from spooler by dr2chase.org (Mercury/32 v3.21c); 19 Apr 02 10:32:31 -0400 Received: from watergate.world.std.com (192.168.1.3) by dr2chase.org (Mercury/32 v3.21c) with ESMTP ID MG000009; 19 Apr 02 10:32:22 -0400 Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020419085123.020e3000@pop.theWorld.com> X-Sender: chase@192.168.1.3 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 10:32:17 -0400 To: caml-list@inria.fr From: David Chase Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Proselytizing In-Reply-To: <20020419095844.A12080@pauillac.inria.fr> References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020418151206.01ec4098@pop.theWorld.com> <20020418144440.GA27750@kiefer.ai.univie.ac.at> <20020418074543.95391.qmail@web11204.mail.yahoo.com> <20020418074543.95391.qmail@web11204.mail.yahoo.com> <5.1.0.14.0.20020418095406.02a6aec0@pop.mail.yahoo.com> <5.1.0.14.0.20020418151206.01ec4098@pop.theWorld.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk At 09:58 AM 4/19/2002 +0200, Xavier Leroy wrote: >I don't doubt that, but my experience (as a long-time Unix user who >installed quite a bit of garbage of the kind you mention) is that >installing Unix software on Windows machines, even with Cygwin, is >often surprisingly hard. True, though Cygwin has improved astonishingly over the last five years. One problem with the "new" Cygwin is that it comes in many, many pieces, so when someone says "Cygwin" you cannot now be sure what exactly they have installed. However, back to the subject. For proselytizing purposes, you want to avoid bad surprises for new users. In this case, I think that means that you should remove any Unix-only demos from the introductory examples, and put them someplace with a clear label that says "Unix only". Unless the benefits from impressing the Unix users outweigh the negatives of confusing the Windows users, such demos should go. The other reason to avoid Unix-only demos is that, if you wish to make ocaml more likely to be accepted by new users, then it doesn't hurt to be "cross platform", which means that support for Windows is about as good as support for Unix (which ought to now include MacOS X). Not only should this be true, it should also be easy to see this truth from the outside. This is purely for marketing purposes, understand, but I am much more likely to want to write something new in OCaml if I think I'll be able to run it on any box I am likely to use (meaning, Windows, Linux, and MacOS). David ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners