Re: [Caml-list] OCaml maintenance status / community fork

[Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>]

"Gerd Stolpmann" <info@gerd-stolpmann.de> writes:

>> Hi all,
>>
>> I will not jump in the "how to save OCaml from dying because nothing
>> moves" discussion. But just in the "nothing moves" discussion.
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 2:52 PM, ivan chollet <ivan.chollet@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> The current status of OCaml is more than stable enough to serve its
>>> goals,
>>> which are to teach computer science to french undergrads and provide a
>>> playground for computer languages researchers.
>>
>> First, french undergrads sadly often still use camllight... Which is
>> not the case for example of Harvard undergrad
>> (http://www.seas.harvard.edu/courses/cs51/lectures.html) and some
>> UPenn one (http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cis341/). But you are right that
>> I can't find any well known university out of France using OCaml to
>> teach computer science...
>
> Well, if you ask whether _any_ FP language is taught, the results won't be
> much better.
>
> I'm currently doing consulting for a web company (in Germany) - around 60
> developers, many fresh from the University. There are only three guys
> knowing FP languages at all - one Scala, one Erlang, and one R. It's a
> complete failure of the academic education.
>
> IMHO it does not matter which FP language you are taught in. The point is
> that the students understand the ideas, and that they recognize them as
> relevant. These web developers here in the company have no clue that they
> actually developing a big continuation-style FP program.
>
> Gerd

In Tuebingen we started with scheme in the first year and later there
were several classes on FP languages and a few using ocaml, for example
the compiler construction class. But the later classes are pick&choose,
you just need enough credits from each of the 3 major groups, so people
can probably completly avoid FP based curses.

Personally I think the introduction to computer languages class we had
is a must. How else do you even know what is out there and if you like
it?

MfG
        Goswin