From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) id VAA23829; Mon, 20 Jan 2003 21:28:56 +0100 (MET) X-Authentication-Warning: pauillac.inria.fr: majordomo set sender to owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr using -f Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by pauillac.inria.fr (8.7.6/8.7.3) with ESMTP id VAA23659 for ; Mon, 20 Jan 2003 21:28:53 +0100 (MET) Received: from epexch01.qlogic.org ([63.170.40.3]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id h0KKSpr08652 for ; Mon, 20 Jan 2003 21:28:52 +0100 (MET) Received: from epmailtmp.qlogic.org ([10.20.33.254]) by epexch01.qlogic.org with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5329); Mon, 20 Jan 2003 14:28:58 -0600 Received: from [10.20.33.146] ([10.20.33.146]) by epmailtmp.qlogic.org with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.4905); Mon, 20 Jan 2003 14:28:58 -0600 Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 14:37:43 -0600 (CST) From: Brian Hurt X-X-Sender: Reply-To: Brian Hurt To: Mattias Waldau cc: , "'Matt Gushee'" , Subject: RE: [Caml-list] ANN: ChartPak - a data visualization library for the web In-Reply-To: <00c001c2c0bd$04afd7a0$0a00a8c0@gateway> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-OriginalArrivalTime: 20 Jan 2003 20:28:58.0602 (UTC) FILETIME=[8FA63CA0:01C2C0C2] Sender: owner-caml-list@pauillac.inria.fr Precedence: bulk On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Mattias Waldau wrote: > We all want Ocaml to be a success. We want people to develop commercial > applications using Ocaml, because otherwise it will never be a success. Agreed. > > Having a lot of libraries that can be used without restrictions is a > competitive advantage for a programming language. Ocaml has few > libraries compared to alternatives, making it more difficult to develop > applications. I don't think libraries are the biggest problem Ocaml faces for commercial acceptance. Both C and C++ gained widespread acceptance with libraries not much better than Ocaml's (and in C's case much worse). I'm unusual in that programming is my hobby as well as my job. Most of the professional programmers I know of don't program outside of work. The more aggressive ones may occassionally take a class to put some new buzzword on the resume- but even then, the reasoning is (next-)job related, so the courses they take are for hot buzzword technologies. But the average run of the mill programmer doesn't learn anything unless the Boss requires it- and the Boss only requires what he reads about in Infoweak or whatever magazine is dictating his management philosophy this week. Look at the last 20 years. In 1980, assembly language was still the "real programmers" language of choice, especially on the PC/DOS. Assembler got phased out in favor of C, which a) had good interfacing with assembler, and b) let you still do most of your old assembler tricks. C is a high level, portable assembler. Then along came Object Oriented- remember back when OO was a buzzword? There were many good OO languages, and even some C + OO attempt (objective C), but what was the language that won out? C++. Primarily, IMHO, because C++ contains C as a (more or less) proper subset. Which allows you to go on coding in (old familiar) C while telling your boss and marketing "Of course we're object oriented! We're coding in C++!" Over the next eight years, programmers slowly learned OO, on the job. And a lot of really bad pseudo-OO code was written, as inclination and schedules allowed. Then, along came Java- which is primarily a cleaned up C++. The only new ideas Java introduced to C++ programmers was garbage collection and virtual machines. Neither of which were all that new really :-). I've seen examples of virtual machines from the seventies, and garbage collection goes back to the early sixties if not farther. But they were radical to the mainstream- radical and scary, judging from the amount of resistance I've seen Java face. The trend here is that the mainstream only takes baby steps. They can learn new things- using a high level language, or OO, or garbage collection- but only if they can do so on the job, still meeting (unreasonable) deadlines. And I don't see how you can switch from Java to Ocaml, or any truely functional programming language, in such a way. The only way I can see to make the transition is to just make the transition. Accept that you will be at a signifigantly reduced productivity while learning the new way of thinking. I think Ocaml is *worth* making the transition, but I don't see people doing it. Sorry. > I think that many programmers just select the (L)GPL-license without > thinking about the consequences, but I might be wrong. You can link to the LGPL just fine, which makes it much more usable in a commercial environment. Which is why it was invented- it would be impossible to do commercial work on Linux at all without it (libc is LGPL'd). Which is also why Stallman doesn't like it. I personally think the LGPL works great for a library- anyone and everyone can *use* the library, but improvements to the library have to be shared. But if I don't write the code, it's not my choice. Brian ------------------- To unsubscribe, mail caml-list-request@inria.fr Archives: http://caml.inria.fr Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs FAQ: http://caml.inria.fr/FAQ/ Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners