[Caml-list] general question, was Re: OCaml is broken
Hi, i have a large project written in C++, for which i am planing to write add-ons and tools in ocaml, e.g. different tools to analyse my code (dependency stuff), an interpreter for a script-language i plan to include, etc, etc. form my time at the uni i remembered that ocaml allows to compile libraries which can be included in c/c++ program, and i know people who use it extensively in other projects. therefore, i decided to give ocaml a try. i like functional programming, and my first steps with ocaml are very promising. following this discussion, i am not so sure anymore, if ocaml is a good decision. may be i got this discussion wrong, but if ocaml is dying out, i might have to look for another functional programming language to use with my project. please dont take this email as an offence. i am just curious. at this point, i can still easily look for an alternative to ocaml, so its best to ask now. regards, keyan ___ 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
Re: [Caml-list] general question, was Re: OCaml is broken
Am Montag, den 21.12.2009, 15:19 +0100 schrieb Keyan: Hi, i have a large project written in C++, for which i am planing to write add-ons and tools in ocaml, e.g. different tools to analyse my code (dependency stuff), an interpreter for a script-language i plan to include, etc, etc. form my time at the uni i remembered that ocaml allows to compile libraries which can be included in c/c++ program, and i know people who use it extensively in other projects. therefore, i decided to give ocaml a try. i like functional programming, and my first steps with ocaml are very promising. following this discussion, i am not so sure anymore, if ocaml is a good decision. may be i got this discussion wrong, but if ocaml is dying out, i might have to look for another functional programming language to use with my project. please dont take this email as an offence. i am just curious. at this point, i can still easily look for an alternative to ocaml, so its best to ask now. Please don't believe Jon's propaganda. He has just very specific needs (high performance computing on desktops), and generalizes them in the way it's not perfect for me anymore, so it's bad anyway. He has been doing that for years now, not seeing that he really harms the way ocaml is seen by newcomers. The examples you mention are good matches for using ocaml - symbolic programming with lots of terms and trees. That's the stuff ocaml was originally developed for, and it delivers excellence performance. Also, ocaml is still backed by INRIA, and there is still a large community, including a growing number of industrial users. Gerd -- Gerd Stolpmann, Bad Nauheimer Str.3, 64289 Darmstadt,Germany g...@gerd-stolpmann.de http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de Phone: +49-6151-153855 Fax: +49-6151-997714 ___ 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
Re: [Caml-list] general question, was Re: OCaml is broken
following this discussion, i am not so sure anymore, if ocaml is a good decision. may be i got this discussion wrong, but if ocaml is dying out, i might have to look for another functional programming language to use with my project. Every programming language suffers its trolls and flamewars. ___ 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
Re: [Caml-list] general question, was Re: OCaml is broken
On Mon, 2009-12-21 at 15:19 +0100, Keyan wrote: Hi, i have a large project written in C++, for which i am planing to write add-ons and tools in ocaml, e.g. different tools to analyse my code (dependency stuff), an interpreter for a script-language i plan to include, etc, etc. form my time at the uni i remembered that ocaml allows to compile libraries which can be included in c/c++ program, and i know people who use it extensively in other projects. therefore, i decided to give ocaml a try. i like functional programming, and my first steps with ocaml are very promising. following this discussion, i am not so sure anymore, if ocaml is a good decision. may be i got this discussion wrong, but if ocaml is dying out, i might have to look for another functional programming language to use with my project. Functional programming languages will never become mainstream. There is a thread on haskell-mailing-list from time to time. What language you chose should depend always on your (your team) skills, tools and tasks. -Philip please dont take this email as an offence. i am just curious. at this point, i can still easily look for an alternative to ocaml, so its best to ask now. regards, keyan ___ 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 ___ 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
Re: [Caml-list] general question, was Re: OCaml is broken
Hi, first of all thanks for the replies, and for not misunderstanding my email. What language you chose should depend always on your (your team) skills, tools and tasks. i dont want to go into a which-programming-language-is-best-for-what discussion (as this will never end), but at this point i wanted to know if ocaml is still alive, i.e. if you can still easily download and install it on a variety of OS, and if it will be supported in the future. i am working on an open-source project, so beside your arguments (which of course are valid), it is also important if people who decide not to download the binaries, but rather download the source, will be able to compile it. for me personally, i just like functional programming, and i like to learn new stuff from time to time. and to be honest, i am very happy to have found applications in the project which i can use a reason to include a functional programming language in the code :) so, thanks for your replies. i am confident again, and will continue to use ocaml. regards, keyan ___ 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
Re: [Caml-list] general question, was Re: OCaml is broken
On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 04:01:31PM +0100, Keyan wrote:
but at this point i wanted to know if ocaml is still alive, i.e. if
you can still easily download and install it on a variety of OS, and
Quite alive.
http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/o/ocaml/current/changelog
(Look for new upstream release to check how often new upstream have
been released and made part of Debian-based distributions. Fedora
people have similar stories to tell.)
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
z...@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...| ..: | Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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Re: [Caml-list] general question, was Re: OCaml is broken
On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Gerd Stolpmann g...@gerd-stolpmann.de wrote: Please don't believe Jon's propaganda. He has just very specific needs (high performance computing on desktops), and generalizes them in the way it's not perfect for me anymore, so it's bad anyway. He has been doing that for years now, not seeing that he really harms the way ocaml is seen by newcomers. I've seen some interesting parallel programming projects and language extensions using ocaml. I suppose ocaml could benefit from a parallelizing compiler standardized explicit parallelism constructs, and be a serious contender for the multicore market. I personally started out with Haskell with regards to contemporary high-level languages, and then switched to ocaml because of performance and sanity. I think I also love the higher-order modules =) I want to rewrite my stock prediction program in ocaml nowadays. In Haskell, it was a pain to work on large files. Good thing I lost the code in a hard drive crash. The way I see it, ocaml has adequate performance, and is excellent for algorithmic work. I have this half-finished project that features ocaml implementation of some algorithms. You should see them, they are almost identical to pseudo-code. I should move that project to ocamlforge. Cheers, -- Eray Ozkural, PhD candidate. Comp. Sci. Dept., Bilkent University, Ankara http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ai-philosophy http://myspace.com/arizanesil http://myspace.com/malfunct ___ 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
Re: [Caml-list] general question, was Re: OCaml is broken
Hi, i dont want to go into a which-programming-language-is-best-for-what discussion (as this will never end), but at this point i wanted to know if ocaml is still alive, i.e. if you can still easily download and install it on a variety of OS, and if it will be supported in the future. The fact that the compiler's source code is (a) available, and (b) straightforward enough for mere mortals to understand should give you some assurances that Ocaml can never die by fiat. Moreover, there's a vibrant community around it, both in industry and in the open-source world. (Ocaml support in Debian and Fedora is top-notch, for example). Last but not least, Ocaml plays a central role in multiple INRIA projects, which means its creators have all the reason to continue maintaining it and improving it for the foreseeable future (and there's some interesting goodies in the upcoming 3.12 release, for example). Though I am grateful and acknowledge Jon Harrop's help in the beginner's list, you should take his prognostications with a grain of salt. Every now and again he proclaims that Ocaml is doomed! We're all gonna die!. It has almost become a comedy catchphrase of sorts in this list... So yes, do choose Ocaml for your project. You won't regret it. Best regards, Dario Teixeira ___ 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
Re: [Caml-list] general question, was Re: OCaml is broken
I agree with most of what Dario Teixeira wrote, except for one small quibble: Dario Teixeira wrote: Last but not least, Ocaml plays a central role in multiple INRIA projects, which means its creators have all the reason to continue maintaining it and improving it for the foreseeable future (and there's some interesting goodies in the upcoming 3.12 release, for example). Actually, this gives these projects an incentive to insure that Ocaml survives, which gives an incentive for some 'maintenance engineers' to be kept on-staff to insure that Ocaml does not bit-rot. This gives only quite partial incentive to a team of researchers (the creators of Ocaml) to do maintenance (as that is usually not research, thus not the kind of work of interest to researchers). And entropy is a real problem -- Ocaml is now quite mature, which means that radical changes are well nigh impossible; this is a serious disincentive for researchers. End of quibble. Personally, I would really really want to see a 4.00 release which really warrants that name. The 3.XX line can be maintained for a few more years while people switch, in the same way gcc did this. In any case, I have nevertheless voted with my time and effort: I have 1 large project being implemented in Ocaml, 3 medium ones in metaocaml, although I must admit that I have some 'research' code in Haskell (and in Maple, but that's another story). Jacques ___ 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
Re: [Caml-list] general question, was Re: OCaml is broken
On Monday 21 December 2009 14:19:05 Keyan wrote: Hi, i have a large project written in C++, for which i am planing to write add-ons and tools in ocaml, e.g. different tools to analyse my code (dependency stuff), an interpreter for a script-language i plan to include, etc, etc. form my time at the uni i remembered that ocaml allows to compile libraries which can be included in c/c++ program, and i know people who use it extensively in other projects. therefore, i decided to give ocaml a try. i like functional programming, and my first steps with ocaml are very promising. following this discussion, i am not so sure anymore, if ocaml is a good decision. may be i got this discussion wrong, but if ocaml is dying out, i might have to look for another functional programming language to use with my project. OCaml isn't dying out and it is still ideal for the applications you listed because they are not performance critical and do rely heavily upon an efficient GC. This discussion was essentially about the exact opposite end of the spectrum of applications, where performance is critical but GC is largely irrelevant. -- Dr Jon Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd. http://www.ffconsultancy.com/?e ___ 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
