[Ocaml-biz] So where are we?

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>
> I see about 1 month's worth of e-mail in my ocaml-biz folder.
>
> What have we accomplished?

Ok, I'll take a first stab at it.

We have discussed marketing ideas.  This has motivated some of us to put
our individual weight behind specific projects we individually care
about.  Also we have identified The Language Shootout
http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/, PLEAC
http://pleac.sourceforge.net/, and Eclipse
http://eclipsefp.sourceforge.net/ocaml/ as important projects for
gaining OCaml converts.

> What are we not accomplishing?

We have taken a stab at creating logos, but we haven't followed through
on it.

We haven't pursued any collective tasks, and it appears we will not do
so.  The political will does not exist.  It is both a "herding cats"
problem and a "too busy" problem.  We have established the truth of this
long before a self-imposed Oct. 1st deadline.

We have not reported any efforts to COCAN, nor unified with them in any
way.  In fact, I think the COCAN webadmin has blocked me from accessing
the site.  In any event he doesn't answer my e-mails, yet asks me
pointed questions on caml-list about my Nebula2 projects.  Meanwhile,
nobody else has taken responsibility for coordinating with COCAN.  I
don't think COCAN itself is doing much of anything.  It seems like a
"nice idea" with no energy behind it.  It lacks a wiki culture of
communication; rather, it's a few people gatekeepering a small and
fairly static site.  I don't see why it will snowball or be paid
attention to.

> What do we each feel we're supposed to be accomplishing?

Increasingly I feel that "we" is irrelevant and only "I" matters.  I'm
disappointed at this, but I admit it's the dominant paradigm of open
source.  I see this as the main weakness of open source, frankly.  Much
like in Python-land, I find if I want something in OCaml-land, I have to
do it myself.  There's almost nothing to leverage in the problem domains
I'm working on (3D graphics, AI, games).  This makes me wonder at the
wisdom of using OCaml at all.  In theory, it could be more efficient and
pleasant to program in.  In practice, OCaml is an invitation to lots and
lots of extra work.

I feel I should take a stab at implementing an OCaml Script Server for
the Nebula2 3D engine.  http://nebuladevice.cubik.org .  If it proves to
be too much of a PITA in the real world, then later for OCaml.  My
timebound on this is going to be 1 month, max.  Maybe shorter.


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

"The pioneer is the one with the arrows in his back."
                          - anonymous entrepreneur