On Wed, 18 Apr 2007, Richard Jones wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 09:06:38PM +0100, Jon Harrop wrote:
>>
>> Flying Frog Consultancy just started the F#.NET Journal, an on-line
>> publication composed of articles, example source code and tutorial videos
>> aimed at beginner programmers learning the F# programming language from
>> Microsoft Research:
> [...]
>
> Does F# run on real operating systems?  Does it have a full open
> source stack?

Overall, I see F# as a good thing for Ocaml.  OK, it draws some of it's 
support from the Ocaml community (John Harrop here being an obvious 
example)- thus dilluting the pool of energy from Ocaml, at least in the 
short term.  But any F# programmer can pick up Ocaml in short order, and 
vice versa (not unlike the C#/Java communities).

But I think were F# will really draw it's people from is outside the 
community.  It'll draw from the vast horde of C#/VB/C++ Windows 
programmers.  Draw people from outside the community to inside the 
community.  And sooner or later many of them are going to start looking 
for an F# that runs on Linux/Unix.

Even if I'm wrong, even if F# is a net loss for Ocaml, I still can't help 
viewing F# as a good thing over all.  Anything which helps programmers 
write code that doesn't *SUCK* is an advantage to us all- and every 
programmer coding in F# is a programmer not coding in C#, VB, or, God help 
us, C++.  Making code proven free of large classes of bugs, and many other 
bugs rare indeed is a definate good.  And bluntly, most software- free 
software as well as proprietary, sucks large rocks through very small 
pipettes.

Just my two cents.

Brian