From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Original-To: caml-list@sympa.inria.fr Delivered-To: caml-list@sympa.inria.fr Received: from mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.83]) by sympa.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 298807EE51 for ; Mon, 27 May 2013 10:38:02 +0200 (CEST) Received-SPF: None (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of fabrissimo@gmail.com) identity=pra; client-ip=209.85.128.173; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="fabrissimo@gmail.com"; x-sender="fabrissimo@gmail.com"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible Received-SPF: Pass (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: domain of fabrissimo@gmail.com designates 209.85.128.173 as permitted sender) identity=mailfrom; client-ip=209.85.128.173; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="fabrissimo@gmail.com"; x-sender="fabrissimo@gmail.com"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible; x-record-type="v=spf1" Received-SPF: None (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of postmaster@mail-ve0-f173.google.com) identity=helo; client-ip=209.85.128.173; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="fabrissimo@gmail.com"; x-sender="postmaster@mail-ve0-f173.google.com"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AjgCANkao1HRVYCtm2dsb2JhbABagzi5SIk5CBYOAQEBAQEGCwsJFCiCIwEBBAFAAScGCwEDAQsBBQULOyISAQUBHAYTFIdnAwkGoAqPPIQ1JwwBiGQBBQySbAOXO4EpinaDPBYpgV2CWjo X-IPAS-Result: AjgCANkao1HRVYCtm2dsb2JhbABagzi5SIk5CBYOAQEBAQEGCwsJFCiCIwEBBAFAAScGCwEDAQsBBQULOyISAQUBHAYTFIdnAwkGoAqPPIQ1JwwBiGQBBQySbAOXO4EpinaDPBYpgV2CWjo X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.87,749,1363129200"; d="scan'208";a="19086511" Received: from mail-ve0-f173.google.com ([209.85.128.173]) by mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP/TLS/RC4-SHA; 27 May 2013 10:37:32 +0200 Received: by mail-ve0-f173.google.com with SMTP id cy12so4891639veb.18 for ; Mon, 27 May 2013 01:37:32 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=ZvSDAoN1FB5QqG4alBpi+NjchQdrETUi+nOfX0Kwalw=; b=orcG1ZojWTLAyrSb4nXyPGhSaetuhLOqQqrTm9sbIpcyo7OXtlkA8Bm6UxlHHiiZt0 BPKL4Tf5sgtM60YZbkC1z1vcJJF8bvUNOdpb1MuHAj+DFKtLsmGQvKqP7kaT73DWlAE+ auG0p/Ppwff9nQUCDS/4JyMPhuZVCAmj+j/Ai52NcSRUCn9FSOD4f9hkBYa+qFmJGW9R bwz9tZpfmw2hOEBrrgsBzDC2XFzvj0Nj0rxw/2MPAAaLOsWTuMaNC2RtLutnzfCj1uHV ApAm6tkCBjFHEDfhn4E+SQG19pwS8OxhUK6dD+XwGv0R8e/BduCzEtje5Xhn6aoHbGvH o6PA== MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.52.163.69 with SMTP id yg5mr12559051vdb.38.1369643851906; Mon, 27 May 2013 01:37:31 -0700 (PDT) Sender: fabrissimo@gmail.com Received: by 10.220.83.67 with HTTP; Mon, 27 May 2013 01:37:31 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <51A30E01.5070300@freenet.de> References: <20130523235355.GI6510@siouxsie> <20130526150008.GA2014@siouxsie> <20130526234911.41866xca7wgoirfb@webmail.in-berlin.de> <51A30E01.5070300@freenet.de> Date: Mon, 27 May 2013 10:37:31 +0200 X-Google-Sender-Auth: QZWETuyOo7K57OTZKDmQsKwf_cI Message-ID: From: Fabrice Le Fessant To: "Mr. Herr" Cc: Ocaml Mailing List Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a11c2cdf043067504ddaf0f0e Subject: Re: Problems to get larger user base ... (Re: [Caml-list] OCaml's variables) --001a11c2cdf043067504ddaf0f0e Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 9:43 AM, Mr. Herr wrote: > > Am 26.05.2013 23:49, schrieb Oliver Bandel: > > Which "bigger problems" do you think of? > > I think the biggest problem is you generally can only learn FP and/or > Ocaml at > university, because: > For fun, I recently followed the Scala course on Coursera. Having the same thing for OCaml would just be great for beginners. > Then the community looks very small to me, and isn't it a bit closed? > Closed, no, it might have looked like that a while ago, but now, there are many people/projects trying to attract people to OCaml. Just to name a few: - OCamlPro (pushing industrials to use of OCaml) - OCamllabs (organizing the community around OCaml) - ocaml.org (modernizing the official website) - Jane Street (funding the previous items, and pushing Core as a potential standard library) - INRIA (opening the development of OCaml itself) - OCaml'2013 (creating a conference for academics publications on OCaml) - OPAM (simplifying the installation of OCaml) - RealWorldOCaml (publishing a book in English for beginners) and of course, many developers releasing their open-source contributions, organizing local events (come to ocaml-paris meetup, next time on July 2 !) Small, compared to Java, yes, but I was surprised by how many people would like to use OCaml, and cannot use it for corporate reasons, so they are not really visible. > And how to solve them? > > Why not go out to Usenet? You would need more tolerance to (even pointless) > discussions than toolslive@yh has shown. > I don't now if there is an OCaml community on Usenet (I didn't go there for the last ten years...), but there are many discussion groups on OCaml using different communication media (Stack Overflow, Reddit, Twitter, #ocaml, etc.), so I don't think having _also_ the mailing-list is a problem. I think we need code examples to _every_ function and variable/value. > Indeed, people from Scilab told me that they did this, and it was a great success for attracting users. Note that it does not need to be done by the OCaml developers themselves, anybody can create a project on Github/Gitorious/etc. and start writing some documentation on a module that he likes and have it published somewhere... We did "Cheat Sheets for OCaml" at OCamlPro a while back, such independent initiatives are always welcome by the community. --Fabrice --001a11c2cdf043067504ddaf0f0e Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 9:43 AM= , Mr. Herr <misterherr@freenet.de> wrote:

Am 26.05.2013 23= :49, schrieb Oliver Bandel:
> Which "bigger problems" do you think of?

I think the biggest problem is you generally can only learn FP and/or Ocaml= at
university, because:
=A0
For fun, I re= cently followed the Scala course on Coursera. Having the same thing for OCa= ml would just be great for beginners.
=A0
Then the community looks very small to me, and isn't it a bit closed?

Closed, no, it might have looked l= ike that a while ago, but now, there are many people/projects trying to att= ract people to OCaml. Just to name a few:
- OCamlPro (pushing industrials to use of OCaml)
- OCamllabs (organizing the community around OCaml)
- ocaml.org (modernizing the official website)
- Jane Street (funding the previous items, and pushing Core as a= potential standard library)
- INRIA (opening the developme= nt of OCaml itself)
- OCaml'2013 (creating a conference= for academics publications on OCaml)
- OPAM (simplifying the installation of OCaml)
-= RealWorldOCaml (publishing a book in English for beginners)
=A0and of course, many developers releasing their open-source contributio= ns, organizing local events (come to ocaml-paris meetup, next time on July = 2 !)

Small, compared to Java, yes, but I was surprised= by how many people would like to use OCaml, and cannot use it for corporat= e reasons, so they are not really visible.

> And how to solve them?

Why not go out to Usenet? You would need more tolerance to (even poin= tless)
discussions than toolslive@yh has shown.

I don't now if there is an OCaml community on Usenet (I didn= 9;t go there for the last ten years...), but there are many discussion grou= ps on OCaml using different communication media (Stack Overflow, Reddit, Tw= itter, #ocaml, etc.), so I don't think having _also_ the mailing-list i= s a problem.

I think we need code examples to _every_ function and variable/value.

Indeed, people from Scilab told me tha= t they did this, and it was a great success for attracting users.=A0

Note that it does not need to be done by th= e OCaml developers themselves, anybody can create a project on Github/Gitor= ious/etc. and start writing some documentation on =A0a module that he likes= and have it published somewhere... We did "Cheat Sheets for OCaml&quo= t; at OCamlPro a while back, such=A0independent initiatives are always welc= ome by the community.

--Fabrice=A0



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