Re: [Caml-list] OCaml troll on Slashdot

["William D.Neumann" <wneumann@cs.unm.edu>]

On Mar 15, 2005, at 2:03 PM, padiolea@irisa.fr wrote:

> where ?

http://wwwfun.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~garrigue/garden2.ml

> Yes but this ocaml code use array ?

Lists and arrays.  Each where it's appropriate.

> In that case it supports what the "troll" said, that is
> the resulting code is no more "functionnal".

To which, I'd assume the majority response would be, "So?"  And to 
which I might add Benjamin Pierce's comment, "Most arguments about 
'What is the essence of...?' do more to reveal the prejudices of the 
participants than to uncover any objective truth about the topic of 
discussion.  Attempts to define the term 'object-oriented' are no 
exception."  Sure, he wrote it in regards to object oriented 
programming, but it fits functional programming very well (a 
polymorphic comment, indeed).

>  He is not a newbie, this garden optimization problem is not that 
> simple.

Well, a five minute glance at the code seems to indicate a very shallow 
understanding of OCaml.  He might be a wizard in other aspects of 
programming/CS, but dollars to donuts he's very much an OCaml newbie.

> Perhaps the python/perl/ruby community are successful because they
> answer to those "trolls" who often then become the first
> advocater of the langage who in turn answer to other "trolls" which
> make the community bigger and bigger.

I dunno.  A couple of days ago there was a /. story about the new 
Randal Schwartz book, and at least one person was complaining about the 
perl newsgroups/mailing lists being full of unfriendly, unhelpful folk.

William D. Neumann

"You've got Rita Marlowe in the palm of your hand."
"Palm of my hand?  You haven't seen Rita Marlowe..."

		-- Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?