From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Original-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Delivered-To: caml-list@yquem.inria.fr Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 10439BC40 for ; Mon, 8 Aug 2005 23:10:16 +0200 (CEST) Received: from pauillac.inria.fr (pauillac.inria.fr [128.93.11.35]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j78LAF7w013029 for ; Mon, 8 Aug 2005 23:10:15 +0200 Received: from nez-perce.inria.fr (nez-perce.inria.fr [192.93.2.78]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id XAA21332 for ; Mon, 8 Aug 2005 23:10:15 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from nproxy.gmail.com (nproxy.gmail.com [64.233.182.199]) by nez-perce.inria.fr (8.13.0/8.13.0) with ESMTP id j78LAEnI013026 for ; Mon, 8 Aug 2005 23:10:14 +0200 Received: by nproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id n15so253857nfc for ; Mon, 08 Aug 2005 14:10:14 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=WVVuUYq/+qK6AicjPTh0z8cIyggEv3w9HZ9MWSO+iKzEltEVLD9l1ggCgEsd11xbMIg6F7KzDVuqMB6ZieWRSBx1ucx+1T9vLihlZn2Tu8eN+BoLtdtDsfIlkIk/YhjcJkDYCMe7xbY2UHhUc8js8Wmx75hCLvBOO5s0luZUCjw= Received: by 10.48.237.12 with SMTP id k12mr177110nfh; Mon, 08 Aug 2005 14:10:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.48.49.3 with HTTP; Mon, 8 Aug 2005 14:10:14 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 22:10:14 +0100 From: "Jeremy O'Donoghue" Subject: Re: [Caml-list] OCaml for Industry Cc: caml-list@inria.fr In-Reply-To: <013d01c59c3c$a93375e0$0100a8c0@warp> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline References: <200508011826.52882.jon@ffconsultancy.com> <013d01c59c3c$a93375e0$0100a8c0@warp> X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 42F7CA37.000 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Miltered: at nez-perce with ID 42F7CA36.001 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail.ensmp.fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; caml-list:01 ocaml:01 cannasse:01 warplayer:01 ocaml:01 'ocaml:01 pitfalls:01 compilers:01 lacks:01 caml-list:01 beginner's:01 beginners:01 bug:01 consultants:98 evangelist:98 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.3 (2005-04-27) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=RCVD_BY_IP autolearn=disabled version=3.0.3 On 08/08/05, Nicolas Cannasse wrote: > > > > Whilst considering future projects, it occurred to me that a management > report > > along the lines of "OCaml for Industry" might be a viable product. Such= a > > book could explain the utility of OCaml in overall terms (for managers = and > > investors) as well as detailing the benefits, costs and various ways of > > adopting OCaml in industrial projects. > > > > I'd like to hear from anyone who thinks their company might buy such a > > management report (for around 800UKP) and anyone who can provide > information > > about case studies of OCaml having been used in industry. > > >=20 > That's bad news that nobody answered to this interesting topic within one > week. > As for buying a report, it might be nice to freely provide some results a= nd > trends and then sell the "full report" if it's what you want to do. One of the problems with the idea of 'OCaml for Industry' is that Industry can mean many things. In my case, 'industry' means the development of complex real-time embedded software, generally targetted at mobile telecomms. With my manager's hat on, I don't want to know that OCaml is good for (say) commercial games design. I need to make a case for it in my industry (sadly this is hard in my case - no ARM target). I probably can't get the cash to pay for a report, to assist in decision making. However, many managers do have the ability to recommend the use of consultants to train and mentor their teams, once the decision to do a pilot has been made. This is often surprisingly easy, but it usually takes an enthusiastic evangelist to get things moving. This person probably knows 80% of the issues and pitfalls already. The other 20% - well, they probably can't get funding to pay for a report to help in this area, and that's what the pilot is there to find out. In my opinion you'd be better off giving the report away (probably via mailing list) with the expectation that if you make a good case you'll see the return via consultancy, training and support contracts. > My company is using OCaml is a lot of our projects, mainly for developmen= t > tools (compilers, level generators, resources builders... ). It's perfect= ly > suitable in the case where you need to manipulate a lot of data structure= s > and apply algorithms to them. Much the same for me. The advantage, in this field, is that the writer of the tool generally 'owns' it forever, and the company doesn't much care how the tool was written as long as it works. Same for utilities which generate C/C++. Moving slightly OT, if you want to penetrate industry, what is needed is good, clear documentation, tutorials, good quality training, support. OCaml lacks many of these. Serious indistrial adoptors will pay for them. My employer spends many thousands of pounds per software engineer per year on training, and pretty vast amounts on support as well. We already play well with some leading-edge Open Source teams (although we don't make a fuss about whom), but it's generally been in the areas of training and support that the real money is spent. Jeremy > Nicolas >=20 > _______________________________________________ > Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management: > http://yquem.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/caml-list > Archives: http://caml.inria.fr > Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners > Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs >