Thanks for all the fantastic work, and happy birthday, OCaml!

I still remember my first time trying out OCaml, some time during 1998
(version 1.07, if I remember correctly).  My nagging doubt about the
quality of the language we were taught at university at the time (C++) led
me to investigate better alternatives.  And sure enough, I was not
disappointed!  The quality of the engineering was immediately obvious when
OCaml compiled out of the box on all our diverse Unix platforms, including
64 bit native code generation on our DEC Alpha.  Needless to say, it didn't
take OCaml long to also convince me of its superior language design.

I hope OCaml will stay around for at least another 25 years and hopefully
receive the recognition it richly deserves.

Best regards,
Markus

On Sun, May 9, 2021 at 3:34 AM Xavier Leroy <
xavier.leroy@college-de-france.fr> wrote:

> Dear OCaml enthusiasts,
>
> 25 years ago, on May 9th 1996, release 1.00 of the Objective Caml language
> and system was announced:
> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list/1996-05/msg00003.html
>
> It was already the consolidation of many years of work, integrating Jérôme
> Vouillon and Didier Rémy's work on objects and classes within Caml Special
> Light, itself a combination of my work on modules and native-code
> compilation with earlier code taken from Caml Light, especially Damien
> Doligez's GC.
>
> Little did I know that O(bjective) Caml would still be there 25 years
> later!
>
> A lot happened during this time, including several major evolutions of the
> language, and, much more importantly, the emergence of a community of users
> and an ecosystem of tools and libraries.  But maybe this was just the
> beginning for something even bigger?  We'll see...
>
> Happy birthday, OCaml!
>
> - Xavier Leroy
>
>

-- 
Markus Mottl        http://www.ocaml.info        markus.mottl@gmail.com