Re: [Caml-list] how to encourage adoption of OCaml?

[Yotam Barnoy <yotambarnoy@gmail.com>]

I just asked on the neovim gitter, and the service they use to bridge
with IRC is this one:
https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-gitter

Every aspiring programmer has a github account at this point. It's
just reality. Even without one, you get to view gitter chat in
realtime. IRC requires a bunch of extra arcane knowledge that most
beginners aren't willing to learn, to a large degree because IRC is
simply not being used actively anymore.

Listen -- you can always dismiss features, and like I said,
programmers tend to believe that what they use is the best and
everything new or different is unnecessary. I get it -- I think like
that automatically as well. I think we have to look beyond that --
many of the advantages of new technologies seem minor but they add up.
People were giving the same kinds of rebuttals to moving to github
before that move was made (though I don't think the improvement will
be anywhere near that delta).

Perhaps the key thing to grasp here is this: we're competing with
other languages and ecosystems for programmers. We need to be as
attractive as possible. This competitiveness must take into account
knowledge of the current tools and the impressions they leave on
users. As soon as there's a hurdle in the way, many potential
newcomers will be lost. The additional benefits to existing community
members are there as well, but they're harder to talk about tangibly
until we experiment with the new communication channels.

On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 12:45 PM, Glen Mével <glen.mevel@crans.org> wrote:
> Yotam Barnoy a écrit (le 10/07/2016 à 16:47) :
>
>> […] I've found gitter to be ideal for this, much more so than IRC
>> (which has a high barrier-of-entry).
>
> what is so complicated about using the web interface to IRC [1] ?
>
> what about the barrier‐of‐entry to that gitter? i’ve never heard of it
> before and i’m not sure what’s so new there (apart from the built‐in
> persistence), but as i understood, it is a github service so it would
> require a github account (and to accept to be publicly linked to that
> github account, and to rely on proprietary solutions, etc·), whereas IRC
> requires nothing.
>
>> I'll enquire on IRC (just connecting requires me using an annoying
>> service like IRCCloud, which shows the problem -- I can't even post
>> the question and get a notification about a response.)
>
> at least the web interface mentionned above does notify you, and even
> plays a sound iirc. if you are not served within the hour and want to
> stay 24 hours a day to finally see your answer, then structured forums
> are better fit to your use than messy instant messaging anyway.
>
> --
> Glen Mével
>
> [1]: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#ocaml
>
> p·s·:
>
>> b. there are tools to scrape gitter history in existence, making the
>> fact that they're proprietary fairly irrelevant.
>
> the point about proprietary systems is not a mere matter of retrieving
> history…
>