From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mail1-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail1-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.82]) by walapai.inria.fr (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id pB70JP5m024516 for ; Wed, 7 Dec 2011 01:19:25 +0100 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AtoAAB2w3k7RVdQ2kGdsb2JhbABDhQaiW4J1CCIBAQEBCQkNGwQhgXIBAQEEEgIPHQEbHgMMBgULDwImAgIiAREBBQEcBhsMBwegQwqLHEiCa4UKPYhxAgUKgSiIaoEWBJRmjWw9g3g X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.71,309,1320620400"; d="scan'208";a="134245279" Received: from mail-vw0-f54.google.com ([209.85.212.54]) by mail1-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP/TLS/RC4-SHA; 07 Dec 2011 01:19:19 +0100 Received: by vbbfr13 with SMTP id fr13so9151209vbb.27 for ; Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:19:18 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id:subject:to :content-type; bh=cAYU0aXKe5sRcy06R/LnKkBwJvwdpiqkCSnHtKRTJ4Y=; b=TlIIrTCgBa8zqKAWs8UNa4wI1zQ56tdDQw92765sMHIZ96gFJX6HT4g/wdnCugYi56 +ZO+o7LH+wt3Pv1/L/9Fk/Fxkav57DKWH1pwtOfmmsVkW7yIxT3s6R+i2jKOKhHTD2DM y8gHdN/nLuTiW0XKvp8CR4NvqUblORPD6UDiA= Received: by 10.52.26.14 with SMTP id h14mr9328646vdg.132.1323217158015; Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:19:18 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.52.188.166 with HTTP; Tue, 6 Dec 2011 16:18:35 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <4EDE568C.9040803@lexifi.com> References: <4EDE33A0.6070004@gmail.com> <4EDE568C.9040803@lexifi.com> From: Paolo Donadeo Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2011 01:18:35 +0100 Message-ID: To: OCaml mailing list Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Some comments on recent discussions I just want to add some erratic thoughts summoned by the recent flame... discussion about "the state of the OCaml union". For this reason I'm not pretending to be coherent or to have an answer to each and every problem, I'm not John Wayne and I'll never be. OCaml community is basically composed by computer professionals that have very few time to spend on the geek social networks (reddit, stackoverflow, ...) to write how this language is beautiful, how it is so "pure" (or "impure"), and so on. I write software in OCaml, and this software is working right now in a production environment. Nothing even comparable with Jane St. or LexiFy or Mylife, but I have my customers and if something stops working, they complain A LOT ;-) This pragmatical attitude of the OCaml community is not accidental and is the clear expression of a language that *is* pragmatical. And this attitude is the main reason why, in my very honest opinion, the OCaml language haven't a hype comparable to, say, Haskell. Is this bad? Are we frustrated because nobody writes on "Wired" about OCaml? I'm not. What I like in OCaml is that it's really stable, fast and in the last years many key tools have been added to the tool chain. As an engineer, I think that ocamlbuild + oasis (only an example) are MORE valuable than first class modules and GADTs. Which, in turn, are not "minor improvements" at all, and I don't see this supposed immobility of the language. The standard library problem: the core library is small, ugly, useless and more. The standard library provided by INRIA can't even send email, make a POST, or talk with a web service. Ok, but what exactly can you do with the C, or C++ standard library? I *like* the elegant simplicity of the standard library and, when something is missing I can: 1) write my own solution or 2) search for library by other OCaml developers. What's wrong with Google searching for a good library? Why many people seems to advocate a unique library "to rule them all"? And why this huge library should enter in the standard distribution? Why many people complain about the poor visibility of the community, but refuses to use ocamlcore.org (thanks Sylvain forever!) only because GitHub has a nicer web2.0 interface? Yes, I like GitHub, but I think we *ALL* should host our projects, at least the main web pages on OCamlCore, to minimize the scatter. There are many specialized library for almost everything in OCaml, and 2/3 big "standard libraries" (Batteries, Core, ExtLib?). Why can't we simply choose one of these excellent libraries? I like Batteries but there is NOTHING wrong with Core, and I hope both of them will remain OUT of the standard distribution forever. Why? Because the standard library is small and virtually bug-free or, better said, it tends to be so, because it's *rare* that a new feature is added, and this is *good*. It's like the basic building blocks of Lego: if you want gears or you need a pulley, buy Lego Technic ;-) Another example: reactive programming. Not using Google (I swear!) I can remember LWT, react, Ocamlnet (in part...) and froc. Is this situation to be considered harmful? I appreciate this wide range of approaches to the same problem, it's the sign of a vital community. I'm too seasoned as a programmer and I already experienced the huge benefits of big standard libraries: the Magnificent Java Standard Library, BOOST, the ACE framework, and many others, all excellent examples of what a serial killer can design with a cohort of programmers and a beautiful programming language ;-) I don't say there are no problems, and everything is fine. But if I have do point at a problem, especially for newcomers, I would say that we need a book, an up to date book, written in good English and published by O'Relly. But this is a very hard issue to be solved, no GitHub (R) (TM) in help here ;-) -- Paolo