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canadaduane/thoughts-on-ocaml.md

Created July 20, 2016 17:21
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Thoughts on OCaml
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thoughts-on-ocaml.md

I subscribed to caml-list for a few weeks. I didn't find the discussions intersected with my learning needs. For instance, much of the teaching in the OCaml community appears to be classroom-oriented. I saw at least 3 conferences or workshops announced, and a MOOC, but no github lesson pages (for lack of a better term) or blogs with source code examples oriented toward beginners. Discussion seemed to be focused on the language itself, and not on how to use the language to get work done (e.g. metaplugins, ppx, let rec).

My impression is that the community sets a high bar for inclusion (i.e. an academic) and that the target audience for most papers, announcements, and conferences is not "someone coming from another language or programming paradigm".

I was also disappointed to see how much resistance there was to trying new things to compete in the language mindshare space--I left with the impression that most OCaml programmers are satisfied with the way things are, and the costs outweigh the benefits in trying, for example, to set up a slack channel or a google group.

I did discover the ocaml beginner's list, but there was not much discussion ongoing there.

@fxfactorial
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fxfactorial commented Jul 20, 2016 •
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Ah, the caml-list does tend to be a bit more inside baseball than for beginners. I haven't seen a github lesson page but that's a good idea. I will make one now. (https://github.com/fxfactorial/learning-ocaml-lesson-plan will fill it out later)

As for blogs, theres a few and the caml-list does tend to aggregate a few. My own blog is pretty good for OCaml needs. You sound like you're looking for something for the working programmer, this post should get you started. http://hyegar.com/2015/10/20/so-youre-learning-ocaml/ Also do look through the archive for more great OCaml posts. (Shameless plug over).

I wouldn't say the community is totally academic, if anything its pretty practical insofar as we pick pragmatic solutions (sometimes we get teased for this by having the runtime be called something from the 90s, etc etc).

Also sorry to disagree but there's also ReasonML which has made many syntax changes to the language and has the support of many OCamlers as well.

Also if you're ever in the Bay Area then stop by OCaml office hours, which happen every Friday in San Francisco. http://www.meetup.com/sv-ocaml/

@canadaduane
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Thanks @fxfactorial, that's very kind of you. I'm in Utah, so kind of close on the global scale, but still a little ways away :)

I actually became interested in OCaml due to ReasonML, and still am. I'll be watching its progress.

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