On Fri, Mar 07, 2003 at 12:27:31PM +1300, Graham Guttocks wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> I discovered OCaml on Doug Bagley's computer shootout page where he
> gives it a rave review over all the other languages he evaluated.
> (...)

Yes, that's where I stumbled over Ocaml for the first time, too ...

> After looking into it further, I'm just surprised that OCaml isn't
> more popular.

I'm not. Exaggerating:

Most programmers are idiots, and idiots won't be able to appreciate
the good things - they take the language which fits their intellectual
base. Still wondering why tons of people program in perl ? :)

> (...)
> Any ideas why OCaml isn't more well known?  Is it just because the
> language is not as old as something like Python, or perhaps because
> the syntax is more difficult to learn?

Bluntly, why should Ocaml be known more ? I'm programming in about a
dozen languages, and I don't give a **** about whether the language
is known or not. If it needs a run-time environment and I gotta deliver,
fine, then they gotta install the run-time environment too. As long as
it's not java you're delivering, they can even download it via the 'net
and still live to see it finishing :)

>From all the things I judge a language, its popularity is nothing
I'm looking at. Well, okay, it can serve to amuse me. The popularity
of lisp for example ("lisp is dead" (yeah - as dead as I am)), or that
of perl (@{%$}!!) ...

On the syntax bit, I think it's just sad that ocaml requires different
special operators for different arguments, that's about it which might
drive off new people.  (why +. ? Can't 'a + 'a be enough for integer, 
bignum, rational, float, string, whatsoEVER addition ? sigh ...).

regards,

-martin

PS: I'm using perl and java myself, so just making sure that you get
that this is no flamebait. If you can't help yourself, cat > /dev/null.

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