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Alternatively, we could indeed just use google groups. It looks like many projects use that. On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 1:02 PM, Yotam Barnoy wrote: > The mailing list is still off of inria.fr. > ocaml.org people, is there any way to move the mailing list domain? > > Also, could someone with ocaml github permissions start a gitter.im > page for OCaml? It should be relatively painless. > > -Yotam > > On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 12:54 PM, Mohamed Iguernlala > wrote: >> Hi there, >> >> I guess you found inria.fr and not infria.fr :-). If it's the case, the >> first thing you should notice when visiting it is the message: >> >> "This site is updated infrequently. For up-to-date information, please v= isit >> the new OCaml website at ocaml.org." >> >> and on ocaml.org, you'll find a "modern website" with a "more convention= al" >> extension. One click later (on the Community >> item of the upper menu), you'll get the information you need about maili= ng >> lists. >> >> Regards, >> >> - Mohamed. >> >> >> >> Le 08/07/2016 17:16, Duane Johnson a =C3=A9crit : >> >> >> On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Gabriel Scherer >> wrote: >>> >>> Adoption is interesting but, as Tony Hoare put it, we are not fashion >>> designers. The best thing I can think of is to communicate more and bet= ter, >>> talk about the cool world that is being done in the OCaml communities, = and >>> importantly talking about it outside it. Supporting software projects t= hat >>> have a potential for impact outside the OCaml community is also key -- = Coq, >>> MLdonkey, Coccinelle, Flow, the SLAM static verifier toolkit, just to n= ame a >>> few. >> >> >> >> As someone who just signed up to this mailing list, may I offer some >> observations? >> >> - my first impression of OCaml community was through reddit.com/r/ocaml.= As >> a reddit user, I would rank /r/ocaml as "barely alive but stable"--in ot= her >> words, the upvotes-per-thread there are in the single digits and low >> double-digits showing people exist there, but it is not a thriving >> community. >> - next, I tried to find a google group. It was hard to find any substant= ial >> and popular OCaml groups there. There was an OCaml aggregation list, but= it >> wasn't clear that it was a discussion group. My first thought was, Is th= ere >> no mailing list? I searched around and found the infria.fr domain. To an >> outsider, this lends no credibility or brand-name familiarity. Not only = is >> the web domain unfamiliar, but the website does not look welcoming--it >> appears to be out of the 90s. >> - signing up for a mailing list is slow and unrewarding. I'd much rather >> sign up for a more modern community technology like reddit, facebook, sl= ack, >> or google groups. >> - I clicked "Info" to get more info about the mailing list on infria.fr = and >> it says "Private information" inside a white bubble. Ok... >> - I looked for a chat community, and IRC is the only option. This signals >> "old tech community" to me. Slack or gitter.im is a more inclusive, mode= rn >> community. In order to participate in IRC, one must always be connected. >> This makes it more difficult for outsiders to come in and feel like they= can >> 'catch up' on the conversation (Yes, I know there are chat logs, but this >> feature is not an integrated part of IRC). >> >> In summary, all of the signals that I usually depend on to evaluate the >> community around a technology are either weak or give me the impression = of >> "old and barely stable". New, exciting technologies that I've seen tend = to >> embrace and tap in to existing community platforms (slack, reddit, githu= b, >> gitbook, google groups) in order to leverage the platform and amplify th= eir >> advertising signal. >> >> Duane Johnson >> >> >> On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 8:40 AM, Gabriel Scherer >> wrote: >>> >>> > Do others on this list feel the ramp to OCaml adoption is smoother th= an >>> > my impression suggests? >>> >>> I can't speak for "adoption", but I think that you have been very kind = as >>> far as user experience is concerned, that it is probably worse than you >>> suggest. >>> >>> We discussed some of these issues a few month ago in a thread launched = by >>> Hendrik Bloom: >>> >>> Is OCaml for experienced beginners? >>> Hendrik Bloom, December 2015 >>> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list/2015-12/msg00077.html >>> >>> I gave a few remarks on the evolution of the OCaml ecosystem on the per= iod >>> I know of that you may be interested in: >>> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list/2015-12/msg00110.html >>> >>> I think "adoption" and "usability" are interlinked but separate issues. >>> >>> Getting adoption distributes the number of people interesting in helping >>> on usability, so it tends to improve usability, but I tend to think tha= t the >>> second is actually the more interesting, important goal to aim at. >>> >>> Adoption is interesting but, as Tony Hoare put it, we are not fashion >>> designers. The best thing I can think of is to communicate more and bet= ter, >>> talk about the cool world that is being done in the OCaml communities, = and >>> importantly talking about it outside it. Supporting software projects t= hat >>> have a potential for impact outside the OCaml community is also key -- = Coq, >>> MLdonkey, Coccinelle, Flow, the SLAM static verifier toolkit, just to n= ame a >>> few. >>> >>> Regarding usability, I think the tooling ecosystem is too complex today. >>> If I wanted to bootstrap a beginner to do stuff I would have to tell th= em >>> about the OCaml compiler tools (ocamlc, ocamlopt), ocamlfind, a build s= ystem >>> (omake or ocamlbuild for example), oasis, Merlin, opam, and get them to >>> learn either Vim or Emacs. That's a bit too much and even with the plet= hora >>> of tools there are problems we haven't really solved yet -- for example= , how >>> to avoid module name conflicts. >>> I think a lot more work is required, both incremental improvements and a >>> few grand redesigns, before we reach a comfortable ecosystem where star= ting >>> an OCaml project feels like a breeze. That's what I would aim at. >>> >>>> Who here is excited about making OCaml approachable to newcomers? Where >>>> is the main ongoing work on this? Who are the main leaders from this >>>> perspective? >>> >>> >>> This is an interesting question. To my knowledge, no one is specifically >>> focused on this mightily important question. But it's fair to assume th= at we >>> have no "usability team" today, it's more a distributed collection of >>> efforts going in all directions from various people, for example: >>> >>> - Gerd Stolpmann did a lot of work on the early language tooling, notab= ly >>> GODI (an earlier ocaml-specific package manager) and ocamlfind, and also >>> kept very high documentation standards that are an example to follow. >>> >>> - Sylvain le Gall's work on OASIS helps a lot of developers do their >>> packaging by encapsulating, in particular, the knowledge of what to ins= tall >>> where (not a simple question). >>> >>> - The OPAM team as a whole, as well as the maintainers of the public op= am >>> repository, have done tremendous work making OCaml software easy to ins= tall >>> and deploy. (Windows is still of a sore point, but there is progress in= that >>> area. It's a distinct possibility that the OCaml ecosystem will become = nice >>> to use on Windows before Windows disappears or gets a real Unix userlan= d.) >>> >>> I would personally be interested in helping someone with a holistic >>> approach to usability devote as much of their time as they can. (I think >>> there are some sources of funding that could be considered, but nothing= very >>> certain; from a crowd-funding perspective I would be glad to pay =E2=82= =AC30 a month >>> to fund such a position.) I think this is a difficult position because = there >>> is a lot of thankless grunt work implied, and arguably it's not a very >>> career-advancing move. >>> >>> On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 8:57 AM, Dean Thompson >>> wrote: >>>> >>>> Thank you, everyone, for the responses and discussion. If there is >>>> interest, I would still love to hear more thoughts about whether there= is a >>>> roadmap (either de facto from the community, or explicit from leaders = of the >>>> community) to foster broader adoption. >>>> >>>> I see that many organizations are making immense contributions to the >>>> community: from language and ecosystem enhancements, to Real World OCa= ml, to >>>> the OCaml Users and Developers Workshop. Technical progress is rapid. = But so >>>> far, to me, these wonderful contributions feel more like giving back t= o the >>>> community for us to make what we can of them, rather than anyone=E2=80= =99s >>>> systematic effort to streamline broader uptake of OCaml. >>>> >>>> These are the impressions of a newcomer. If there is interest, I would >>>> love to hear more seasoned viewpoints. >>>> >>>> Dean >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management and archives: >>>> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list >>>> Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners >>>> Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs >>> >>> >> >>