OxCaml - a set of extensions to the OCaml programming language.

Post by jaennaet » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 7:24 AM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #93

Lyngbakr wrote: post #7

The Janet Street folks, who created this, also did an interesting episode[0] of their podcast where they discuss performance considerations when working with OCaml. What I was curious about was applying a GC language to a use case that must have extremely low latency. It seems like an important consideration, as a GC pause in the middle of high-frequency trading could be problematic. [0] https://signalsandthreads.com…

The problem is not a GC language per se, people keep putting all GC languages in the same basket. The real issue is being a GC language, without support for explicit manipulation of stack and value types. Want a GC language, with productivity of GC languages, with the knobs to do low level systems coding? Cedar, Oberon language family, Modula-3, D, Nim, Eiffel, C#, F#, Swift, Go.

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 8:02 AM UTC

jaennaet wrote: post #101

pjmlp wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not a GC language per se, people keep putting all GC languages in the same basket. The real issue is being a GC language, without support for explicit manipulation of stack and value types. Want a GC language, with productivity of GC languages, with the knobs to do low level systems coding? Cedar, Oberon language family, Modula-3, D, Nim, Eiffel, C#, F#, Swift, Go.

Does Go have much in the way of GC knobs? It didn't some years ago, but I haven't kept up on latest developments

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 8:40 AM UTC

jaennaet wrote: post #104

pjmlp wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The knobs aren't on the GC necessarily, rather language features. With a Go compiler toolchain you have stack and global memory static allocation, use of compiler flags to track down when references escape, manually allocate via OS bindings, there is the unsafe package, and use slices with it, an assembler is part of the toolchain learn to use it, and regardless of CGO is not Go memes, it is another tool to reach for…

Ohh right yes, now I get what you mean. My brain just immediately went for "GC knobs" when you mentioned "knobs", but in my defense I'm running a 40°C fever so I should probably not be commenting at all

Post by iLoveOncall » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 9:02 AM UTC

phplovesong wrote: post #102

iLoveOncall wrote: post #52

The sunk cost fallacy at Jane Street is strong.

Why? They have one of the largest Ocaml codebases in the world. It has clearly work out VERY well for them, in terms of productivity and pure ROI in features and revenue. Ocaml has so much good going on, even being a less known language. I assume you are a rust fanboy, and i want to see just how long your smirk holds when you compile a 20M LOC project that takes 45 minutes.

Post by phplovesong » Sat, Jun 14, 2025, 12:00 PM UTC

iLoveOncall wrote: post #107

phplovesong wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? They have one of the largest Ocaml codebases in the world. It has clearly work out VERY well for them, in terms of productivity and pure ROI in features and revenue. Ocaml has so much good going on, even being a less known language. I assume you are a rust fanboy, and i want to see just how long your smirk holds when you compile a 20M LOC project that takes 45 minutes.

I've never written a line of Rust in my life, but I unfortunately had the great displeasure to write OCaml. OCaml is a terrible choice for (anyone) a company like this. They NEED to be able to hire the very best of the best, but choosing an exotic language that is less palatable than a plate of shit and more cryptic than alien hieroglyphs restricts your talent pool A LOT. I'm not saying people cannot learn it, I'm sa…