Re: [Caml-list] "Let"-less syntax for coreML

[Pierre-Alexandre Voye <ontologiae@gmail.com>]

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I wrote a memoire about "why language succeed", and my conclusion was
people prefers simple concept at first, even if complex problem become
intricately  more complex with simpler langage than more powerful like
ML/Haskell/Smalltalk/whatever.
People are lazy, they don't want to think, they want to write lines of code.
Plus, IMHO, imperative permit people to construct algorithms step by step,
rather FP which oblige to have a precise idea of your algorithm.
IT Industry wants programmers as factory worker (especially in France),
they don't want educated people with mathematical background (95% of my
former business associate don't know what "Turing complete" is).
IT industry is not interested by productivity improvment at all, it would
reduce their margin... Jacquard-loom syndrome..
So unhappily, ML/Haskell/Smalltalk/Prolog/Whatever will remain an elite
language.

You can turn around about many topics (syntax, education, etc...), theses
languages will gain what ? 1 or 3% ?

2012/1/4 Diego Olivier Fernandez Pons <dofp.ocaml@gmail.com>

>    [cut]
>
> The underlying question is "how to make ML mainstream" which is what the
> (broad) ML community has been trying to do for decades with limited
> success. Among other things we have tried
>  - standards (SML, Haskell 98) with multiple implementations
> - optimizing compilers (OCaml, MLTon)
> - education (first language, data structures, books)
> - (killer) applications
> - popular virtual machines (Java, CLR) to reuse their code base
> - web (Caml as browser extension language in MMM, Caml to JavaScript
> compilation)
> and many more
>
> Agreed that many of these were successful research projects, not
> specifically meant to take over the world (of programming languages).
>
> The result is two folds
> - a technical success : check the code written by the INRIA teams, almost
> everyone uses Caml but those with very specific needs (Java rewriting
> systems, Prolog, high performance Grobner basis, etc).
> - a mainstream failure : limited industrial usage besides a couple of
> companies
>
>         Diego Olivier
>



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