On Mon, 2007-08-27 at 12:41 +0200, Oliver Bandel wrote:

> Yes. So, why do you bothering?!
> Please, no more OCaml-bashing.

I am not Ocaml bashing: I'm analysing the consequences
of certain choices. I can write a lot of different
languages, Ocaml is only one. I also designed my own,
similar in some respects to Ocaml, and made some different
choices with different consequences.

My point is simply that the OP is right: Ocaml has a rather
convoluted and complex syntax that is hard to grasp.

Many people think functional programming is hard to learn,
contrarily, I think it is quite easy and takes about 1 hour,
since any programmer already knows it (though perhaps not
indepth techniques). When I first started using Ocaml I had
no problem with the functional programming aspect .. it was the
syntax I had problems with .. and clearly still do.

For example functors are a simple idea I understand from basic
category theory .. but simple math I can use to express the relations
between various algebraic data structures totally elude me in Ocaml.

I'm not the only one .. only the true masters even come close to
understanding why, in fact, it doesn't work without considerable
extra trickery (I have seen some of these solutions .. there
is no way in the world I could have come up with them).


-- 
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sf dot net>
Felix, successor to C++: http://felix.sf.net