[Ocaml-biz] IDEs

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Brian Hurt wrote:
>
> And you will not get volume, in the Unix/Open Source world,
> by demanding
> that Ocaml users have to use particular editor or IDE.

I'm not entirely convinced of your claim.  I know it's true for you
personally, but other people may have a list of reasons they'd switch.
I'd like to know what the relative market shares of Eclipse, Emacs, and
Vim are before assuming the best road to volumization.  What's the
growth trajectory?  Does Emacs gain new adherants every year or lose
them?  How about Eclipse?

> This is the bit of culture-specific
> blindness I'm trying to cure.  We don't have to tie Ocaml to
> a specific
> development environment, IDE, or editor, and therefor we shouldn't.

Here's the UNIX culture-specific blindness to be cured: packaging and
integration matter in the business world.  If multiple editors are to be
supported, they have to be packaged well so that they actually work.
Otherwise you are not talking IDE, you are talking make and source
control commands from the command line.  Many UNIXen are so comfortable
with the command line that they have no desire for IDEs.  They do not
see or understand the benefits.


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

"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
                                - Ed McKenzie