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

[Olivier Grisel]

Brandon J. Van Every a écrit :
> Unfortunately, the caml-list crowd simply isn't interested in marketing
> or evangelism.  They are techies.  They aren't going to lift a finger,
> they will simply leave the 'success' of OCaml to technological progress.
> And, the rate of technological progress for the next 2..4 years is going
> to stay the same.  It's not slow, but it's not fast either.  It's not
> driven by money or anyone's desire for world conquest.  It's driven by
> introverts randomly finding OCaml useful for their own projects.
> 
> I say 'random' because I see so many OCaml technologies in an early
> adopter stage, with like 10 different home-brewed tools to do the same
> job.  The current OMake discussion on caml-list really hits this point
> home.  All these different cooks are going to run around making their
> own broth, pretty much ignoring each other, not really advancing or
> evangelizing anything.  Over time, people will glom onto one of many
> possible solutions, reinforce it, and then sloooooowly standard
> practices will emerge.  I think 'random' is a fair label for this
> process.

I guess what would help spreading OCaml is to actually contribute code
and resources to existing projects eg:
- packaging software with GODI + GODIVA
- porting GODI+findlib to native windows (without cygwin)
- contribute to the projects (code, documentation, bug reports, ...) you
find most promising so that they will naturally go mainstream/standard.

If you are a windows developer, please contribute native windows ports
but don't expect Linux/bsd/macosx/whatever developers will do it for
you. They probably don't want to invest time and money to set up a new
development environment they won't use otherwise although they would
surely appreciate patches to make their code portable.

I guess progress/standardization will come from actually doing things
and not telling people how to do them. If you show them that your coding
practice are objectively better/more portable/more efficient/... than
theirs, they will naturally adopt them and good standards will naturally
emerge.


Best,

--
Olivier



-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 256 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
Url : /pipermail/ocaml-biz/attachments/20040907/02c36d51/attachment.pgp