Reflections on my first completed application in OCaml
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Reflections on my first completed application in OCaml
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Re: Reflections on my first completed application in OCaml
#2For string interpolation, check out: https://github.com/janestreet/ppx_string
I was just remarking to a coworker Friday how happy this made me; you get to write nice, obvious, readable string expressions with the right substitions, for ~arbitrary types.
Re: Reflections on my first completed application in OCaml
#3Ocaml is rock solid as a foundation, yet the ecosystem appears to be very fragmented. For example, not only does Ocaml not support unicode strings natively, there are several competing libraries offering this functionality. This is just bizarre. Why is it like this? Not unicode specifically but like, in general. Doesn't Ocaml have some kind of language improvement process?
Re: Reflections on my first completed application in OCaml
#4My biggest frustration with the Ocaml is with third-party libraries documentation. The majority of the docs are just function signatures without explanation, let alone usage examples.
The language however is quite nice and the stdlib is fairly complete.
Edit: Another problem I see is the (over?) reliance on PPX preprocessors. It does make a lot of tasks simpler, but it is too much magic for me personally.
Re: Reflections on my first completed application in OCaml
#5Ocaml is rock solid as a foundation, yet the ecosystem appears to be very fragmented. For example, not only does Ocaml not support unicode strings natively, there are several competing libraries offering this functionality. This is just bizarre. Why is it like this? Not unicode specifically but like, in general. Doesn't Ocaml have some kind of language improvement process?
Yes, it does. However a lot of it is driven by long-time ecosystem contributors and they generally work somewhat behind the scenes, presenting on the progress ~annually at conferences like ICFP. Here's the latest progress report, in case you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8T_4zqWmq8
Now this is not the same language/community improvement system that many popular projects nowadays use, but OCaml has been stewarded in its way for a few years now, and it's something the contributors feel is sustainable given the size of the project and the resources available.
About Unicode specifically, there is of course support at the library level as you mentioned (the most well-known library is Camomile), but to try to justify not including it in the language distribution itself, to a certain extent many applications just don't need it. Those that do can of course use libraries, but many (say, backend servers) don't really need to process Unicode strings, they just need to shovel bytes from point A to point B and not actually touch the contents.
Re: Reflections on my first completed application in OCaml
#6Ocaml is rock solid as a foundation, yet the ecosystem appears to be very fragmented. For example, not only does Ocaml not support unicode strings natively, there are several competing libraries offering this functionality. This is just bizarre. Why is it like this? Not unicode specifically but like, in general. Doesn't Ocaml have some kind of language improvement process?
Yes, it does. However a lot of it is driven by long-time ecosystem contributors and they generally work somewhat behind the scenes, presenting on the progress ~annually at conferences like ICFP. Here's the latest progress report, in case you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8T_4zqWmq8 Now this is not the same language/community improvement system that many popular projects nowadays use, but OCaml has b…
> many applications just don't need it. Those that do can of course use libraries, but many (say, backend servers) don't really need to process Unicode strings
I can't speak for actual Ocaml users, but I've personally rejected Ocaml for my user-facing webapps because of things like this. Treating unicode as something optional was fine for early 2000s, but it's really not fine today. Most user facing applications need first class support for internationalized strings much more than other stuff like Big_int that's actually implemented in Ocaml stdlib.
I'm guessing the status quo works fine for existing Ocaml users, but that's kinda circular, and would explain Ocaml's limited adoption outside of its traditional niches.
Re: Reflections on my first completed application in OCaml
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it does. However a lot of it is driven by long-time ecosystem contributors and they generally work somewhat behind the scenes, presenting on the progress ~annually at conferences like ICFP. Here's the latest progress report, in case you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8T_4zqWmq8 Now this is not the same language/community improvement system that many popular projects nowadays use, but OCaml has b…
> many applications just don't need it. Those that do can of course use libraries, but many (say, backend servers) don't really need to process Unicode strings I can't speak for actual Ocaml users, but I've personally rejected Ocaml for my user-facing webapps because of things like this. Treating unicode as something optional was fine for early 2000s, but it's really not fine today. Most user facing applications need…
Actual ocaml user here. User-facing web apps just aren’t a core application target for most people who use Ocaml, and probably won’t ever be. There are many perfectly good languages out there that address that need, so if ocaml doesn’t, so be it.
Maybe I’m just in the minority - I like the fact that there are lots of languages out there, some of which choose not to cater to every possible development scenario. This is why I know lots of languages - instead of trying to apply one to every situation, I look at a situation presented to me and can go into my mental toolbox to pull the right language out for the job. I don’t see language design/implementation as a competition to acquire users. Do a job, do it well, and some subset of people will be happy - those that aren’t can move along and continue browsing the catalog of languages until they find one that meets their needs.
Re: Reflections on my first completed application in OCaml
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
> many applications just don't need it. Those that do can of course use libraries, but many (say, backend servers) don't really need to process Unicode strings I can't speak for actual Ocaml users, but I've personally rejected Ocaml for my user-facing webapps because of things like this. Treating unicode as something optional was fine for early 2000s, but it's really not fine today. Most user facing applications need…
Actual ocaml user here. User-facing web apps just aren’t a core application target for most people who use Ocaml, and probably won’t ever be. There are many perfectly good languages out there that address that need, so if ocaml doesn’t, so be it. Maybe I’m just in the minority - I like the fact that there are lots of languages out there, some of which choose not to cater to every possible development scenario. This i…
are there any advantages to using OCaml for making web apps?
Re: Reflections on my first completed application in OCaml
#9Ocaml is rock solid as a foundation, yet the ecosystem appears to be very fragmented. For example, not only does Ocaml not support unicode strings natively, there are several competing libraries offering this functionality. This is just bizarre. Why is it like this? Not unicode specifically but like, in general. Doesn't Ocaml have some kind of language improvement process?
The language itself is very small and consistent and stable, and the community puts a higher value on getting things right than being consistent. So if there's a disagreement on the right way to implement something, you'll likely see multiple competing implementations, because people would rather implement their own library than use something they see as the wrong approach. Hopefully over the long term this means the best approach wins out and the ecosystem will converge on it, but with the small number of people involved this tends to be a slow process.
Re: Reflections on my first completed application in OCaml
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actual ocaml user here. User-facing web apps just aren’t a core application target for most people who use Ocaml, and probably won’t ever be. There are many perfectly good languages out there that address that need, so if ocaml doesn’t, so be it. Maybe I’m just in the minority - I like the fact that there are lots of languages out there, some of which choose not to cater to every possible development scenario. This i…
are there any advantages to using OCaml for making web apps?
No. You can get similar language-level benefits from languages with stronger ecosystems around web-relevant technologies. For example, F# is very close to Ocaml, but has a healthier ecosystem for web stuff.