RE: [Caml-list] Estimating the size of the ocaml community

["Don Syme" <dsyme@microsoft.com>]

Microsoft has used OCaml for SLAM (http://research.microsoft.com/slam/)
and other amazing tools that find really deep bugs in the C code
implementing device drivers. Byron Cook spoke about this at INRIA
recently.  So when Windows doesn't crash when you pull your PCMCIA card
out at the very moment your machine goes into "hibernate" mode (roughly
speaking one of the bugs they found, though I've probably got the
details wrong) then remember that OCaml made a big contribution to that
:-)

Don

P.S. All opinions my own.

-----Original Message-----
From: caml-list-admin@yquem.inria.fr
[mailto:caml-list-admin@yquem.inria.fr] On Behalf Of Yaron Minsky
Sent: 02 February 2005 21:31
To: Caml Mailing List
Subject: [Caml-list] Estimating the size of the ocaml community

I've been trying to come up with some estimates on the size of the ocaml
community, and I'm wondering if others have come up with anything
better.
Here's what I have so far:

- The mailing list is supposed to have about 500 subscribers[1].  Hard
to know
  if this number is up-to-date.  I wonder if that number has changed
over
  time, and what it is today.

- The OCaml Humps contributors page[2] has about 200 members.

- If you type OCaml into google, you get about 800k hits.  This compares
with
  29 million for C++.  "python programming" (without the quotes) gets
about 5
  million

- If you type "ocaml resume", you get about 5.5k hits.  If you type
"python
  resume", you get about 270k hits.  If you type "C++ resume", you get
almost
  1m hits.

- Some schools teach ocaml.  Brown and Caltech apparently have intro
ocaml
  courses.  Any other places that teach the language?  Any ideas on how
many
  students go through these courses?

- A few companies use ocaml, including Baretta DE&IT, Dassault Aviation,
  LexiFi, Artisan (which has been bought up by AMD?)  Anyone know of
other
  such companies?  It would be interesting to get a list togther of
companies
  that use ocaml significantly.

I'd be interested of any evidence people have of the size and vibrancy
of the
ocaml community.  I'd be particularly interested in evidence of ocaml
use in
the United States, since it seems like a majority of ocaml use is
outside of
the US.

[1] http://yquem.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/caml-list
[2] http://caml.inria.fr/humps/index_contributors.html

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