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

[Tony Edgin]

On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 04:32, Brian Hurt wrote:
> There are at least three major "programming cultures" out there that I can
> identify.  The first, as mentioned, is the C/Unit world.  The second is
> the C++/Windows world, and the third Java.  Or, should I say, the Make,
> VS, and Ant worlds.

Interesting point.

There is a fourth world out there, where I'm a dual citizen of.  Its the 
Matlab world.  Don't laugh yet, I think this is a place Ocaml to gains some 
footing.  

Because of the maturity of Matlab and its ubiquity in academics and 
engineering industry, there is a growing number of applications being written 
in Matlab.  Matlab has a fullfledged type-inferred programming language with 
as well as extensive graphics, math, and engineering domain libraries.   The 
developers of these applications come upon a few problems eventually.  First, 
any customer which wants to use the developers' app needs Matlab, which will 
cost them $2000 or more.  Second, it is dog slow.  When speed becomes an 
issue, the standard is to migrate to C.  Matlab has features which allow the 
developer to migrate incrementally to C, Fortran or Java.  

Ocaml might be able to nudge into this market.  First, Ocaml appeals to math 
geeks, and a lot of Matlab developers are math types.  Second, Maurice 
Bremond has already created Ocamlmex, an interface which allows Matlab to 
call Ocaml functions.

Cheers,
-- 
Tony Edgin