[Ocaml-biz] The strategic future of OCaml for 2..4 years

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Brian Hurt wrote:
>
> Note that the culture Ocaml grew out of has it's advantages and
> disadvantages.  It gave Ocaml a mature and power set of tools
> from the
> get-go.  But it also saddled Ocaml with a set of tools with
> some serious shortcomings.

The OCaml community contains the seeds of its own destruction, er,
rebirth.  We've got like 10 different tools (it seems) trying to improve
upon Make.  OCaml is not 'saddled' in any long term sense.  It's an
interim problem.  The interim is going to be 5 years however.

> > We're not talking about a company that develops and mandates a
> > tool, nor any kind of official standards effort.
>
> This, IMHO, is an advantage.  It's a free market of ideas and
> implementations, not a demand economy dictated by one central
> authority.

Timeliness to market is not one of the advantages here.  The free market
of volunteer ideas and labor might arrive at superior solutions, or it
might just wallow around indefinitely.  Until developers get distracted
by something better than OCaml and just drop it.  I see no necessity in
progress, without some kind of specific driving force for progress.

[I think you meant 'command economy'.]

Which leads me to an idea.  Let's say that open source techies are like
bees, flitting from the nectar of one flower to another.  What can make
OCaml more attractive nectar, so that the essentially unfocused keep
flitting around it long enough for the OCaml community to grow?  I would
call this 'interim survival', rather than any great concept of how OCaml
will change the world, or anything it's actually better at.

In other words, if you want to market to flakes... highly intelligent,
possibly even code prolific flakes, but nevertheless flakes - what do
you do?  What's catnip for the herd of cats?


Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

When no one else sells courage, supply and demand take hold.