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OCaml Programming: Correct and Efficient and Beautiful

cs3110.github.io

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Re: OCaml Programming: Correct and Efficient and Beautiful

#21

Post by water8 »

toolslive wrote: post #16
xyproto wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also find it hard to spot why OCaml is the natural "step up" for creating real world applications instead of Haskell, Rust, Clojure or even Kotlin, C++, Python and Go.

let's see: - OCaml vs Haskell: eager vs lazy (=> memory consumption is more predictable) - OCaml vs Rust: OCaml has a GC (=> comfort) OCaml has tco (could not resist this ;) ) - OCaml vs Clojure: vastly superior typing system. (=> less bugs) - OCaml vs Kotlin: no JVM needed. - OCaml vs C++: more safety. once it compiles it will not segv. - OCaml vs Go: vastly superior typing system. (=> less bugs) - OCaml vs Python:…

OCaml vs All: Good luck finding developers that will write quality code and not cost a fortune each.

Re: OCaml Programming: Correct and Efficient and Beautiful

#22

Post by pwiecz »

newsoul wrote: post #17
kubb wrote: post #3

My introduction to programming course in my university was in OCaml. It was all downhill from there when it comes to the programming languages I had to use.

Which university? Does the course have a public webpage?

Not the original commenter, but my first year course of Introduction of Programming 15 years age was also using OCaml. There were two groups of students, standard one was using Pascal, and the functional one using OCaml. I was studying on Warsaw University and the lecture notes are in Polish: https://mimuw.edu.pl/~kubica/wpf/wpf.pdf

Re: OCaml Programming: Correct and Efficient and Beautiful

#23

Post by cmrdporcupine »

sshine wrote: post #5

I spent a lot of time on Standard ML in university. OCaml was always portrayed as the engineer's alternative for real applications. I spent some time brushing up on OCaml a few years ago using Exercism.io. While OCaml is a personal "top tier" language, I'd always prefer Haskell, Rust or Scala. Type classes / traits just seem to beat a higher-order module system for me.

I learned SML/NJ and OCaml around the same time and for some reason I found SML more pleasant. I particularly liked the SML "Basis" library, it felt really well designed to me.

Still, I'd pick either over Scala. Superior compilation times, cleaner syntax, less complex. Haskell also just feels excessively clever.

I had hoped Rust would be "OCaml but for systems programming" and it sort of is, -- but the borrow checker and memory safety features, as neat as they are, add a lot of mental overhead.

Re: OCaml Programming: Correct and Efficient and Beautiful

#24

Post by newsoul »

pwiecz wrote: post #22
newsoul wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which university? Does the course have a public webpage?

Not the original commenter, but my first year course of Introduction of Programming 15 years age was also using OCaml. There were two groups of students, standard one was using Pascal, and the functional one using OCaml. I was studying on Warsaw University and the lecture notes are in Polish: https://mimuw.edu.pl/~kubica/wpf/wpf.pdf

Thanks! 15 years, that's quite a long time ago.

Re: OCaml Programming: Correct and Efficient and Beautiful

#25

Post by akhmatova »

water8 wrote: post #21
toolslive wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

let's see: - OCaml vs Haskell: eager vs lazy (=> memory consumption is more predictable) - OCaml vs Rust: OCaml has a GC (=> comfort) OCaml has tco (could not resist this ;) ) - OCaml vs Clojure: vastly superior typing system. (=> less bugs) - OCaml vs Kotlin: no JVM needed. - OCaml vs C++: more safety. once it compiles it will not segv. - OCaml vs Go: vastly superior typing system. (=> less bugs) - OCaml vs Python:…

OCaml vs All: Good luck finding developers that will write quality code and not cost a fortune each.

It's not getting things done that matters. It's feeling superior to others that matters.

Re: OCaml Programming: Correct and Efficient and Beautiful

#27

Post by muglug »

I found my experience trying to work with a large OCaml base a nightmare — when signatures changed in an unstable dependency (e.g. function argument removed and nested inside another), the errors spat out by the typechecker were utterly incomphrehensible.

This was largely due to automatic currying in OCaml — if I have a function call "some_function arg1 arg2" and "some_function" adds a third argument, that call becomes a function that requires a single argument, arg3, but the typechecker message that tells you all of this is well-nigh unintelligible.

Switching to Rust was a blessed relief, not least because Rust has much better developer tooling and documentation (but also no automatic currying).

It made me think that OCaml is efficient and beautiful if you're the only person touching your specific codebase (which I think is true in the vast majority of cases) or if many of your colleagues are deep OCaml officionados with PhDs, but it's not a good collaborative language for the rest of us.

Re: OCaml Programming: Correct and Efficient and Beautiful

#28

Post by KurtMueller »

frizlab wrote: post #18
toolslive wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

let's see: - OCaml vs Haskell: eager vs lazy (=> memory consumption is more predictable) - OCaml vs Rust: OCaml has a GC (=> comfort) OCaml has tco (could not resist this ;) ) - OCaml vs Clojure: vastly superior typing system. (=> less bugs) - OCaml vs Kotlin: no JVM needed. - OCaml vs C++: more safety. once it compiles it will not segv. - OCaml vs Go: vastly superior typing system. (=> less bugs) - OCaml vs Python:…

What about Swift?

For now, a good language if you want to develop apps for the mac ecosystem.

Re: OCaml Programming: Correct and Efficient and Beautiful

#29

Post by throwamon »

toolslive wrote: post #16
xyproto wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also find it hard to spot why OCaml is the natural "step up" for creating real world applications instead of Haskell, Rust, Clojure or even Kotlin, C++, Python and Go.

let's see: - OCaml vs Haskell: eager vs lazy (=> memory consumption is more predictable) - OCaml vs Rust: OCaml has a GC (=> comfort) OCaml has tco (could not resist this ;) ) - OCaml vs Clojure: vastly superior typing system. (=> less bugs) - OCaml vs Kotlin: no JVM needed. - OCaml vs C++: more safety. once it compiles it will not segv. - OCaml vs Go: vastly superior typing system. (=> less bugs) - OCaml vs Python:…

> vastly superior typing system. (=> less bugs)

I have no horse in this race, but claiming it to be "vastly superior" and implying "less bugs" makes it sound like this is a logical consequence, when you're actually staying on one side of an endless debate that to me doesn't have clear winners. For instance, from the little I've learned about Clojure, they claim the lack of a "vastly superior type system" is a feature, not a bug, and it's a result of a fundamental difference in some beliefs about how to write correct software.

From this I wonder how misrepresentative your other comparisons are as well. But don't get me wrong, OCaml is probably my "favorite language I've never actually used" (I've never "actually used" Clojure in "real projects" either).

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