From: Jon Harrop
Subject: Lisper had to learn OCaml to get a job
Date: 
Message-ID: <4683cbcd$0$8735$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net>
Here is an interesting case of Lisper blub:

  http://www.podval.org/~sds/ocaml-sucks.html
  "OCaml Language Sucks" by Sam Steingold

There is also a hint of Greenspun:

  "Pattern matching is a very powerful tool, should be easily implemented as
a Lisp macro."

Always good to see. :-)

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
The OCaml Journal
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_journal/?usenet

From: Don Geddis
Subject: Re: Lisper had to learn OCaml to get a job
Date: 
Message-ID: <87k5toc4lx.fsf@geddis.org>
Jon Harrop <···@ffconsultancy.com> wrote on Thu, 28 Jun 2007:
>   http://www.podval.org/~sds/ocaml-sucks.html
>   "OCaml Language Sucks" by Sam Steingold

Much thanks.  I had a vague distaste for OCaml before, but I didn't know
much about it.  I appreciate the link with the many reasons why OCaml's
language design is poor.

        -- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis                  http://don.geddis.org/               ···@geddis.org
Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher.  That is, I
used to, until she got an unlisted number.
	-- Imitation Deep Thoughts
From: Dan Bensen
Subject: Re: Lisper had to learn OCaml to get a job
Date: 
Message-ID: <f6141d$7gk$1@wildfire.prairienet.org>
Don Geddis wrote:
>>   http://www.podval.org/~sds/ocaml-sucks.html
>>   "OCaml Language Sucks" by Sam Steingold
> I had a vague distaste for OCaml before, but I didn't know
> much about it.  I appreciate the link with the many reasons
> why OCaml's language design is poor.

There's a good discussion on Reddit:
http://programming.reddit.com/info/20dh6/comments

OCaml may not be the language for you, but it's a really
good language for big Enterprise projects.  It's too bad
the language is so closely associated with such a troll.

-- 
Dan
www.prairienet.org/~dsb/
From: Alex Mizrahi
Subject: Re: Lisper had to learn OCaml to get a job
Date: 
Message-ID: <4684d287$0$90264$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>
(message (Hello 'Dan)
(you :wrote  :on '(Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:06:53 -0500))
(

 ??>> I had a vague distaste for OCaml before, but I didn't know
 ??>> much about it.  I appreciate the link with the many reasons
 ??>> why OCaml's language design is poor.

 DB> There's a good discussion on Reddit:
 DB> http://programming.reddit.com/info/20dh6/comments

 DB> OCaml may not be the language for you, but it's a really
 DB> good language for big Enterprise projects.  It's too bad
 DB> the language is so closely associated with such a troll.

Sam was not convincing?

really nice code for Enterprise:

(Int64.to_float (Int64.sub (Int64.mul q (Int64.of_int n)) (Int64.mul s s))) 
/. (float n)

type system so advanced, that it cannot do automatic arithmetic 
promotions -- but it's so conceptually pure! really, who needs readable 
arithmetic at Enterprise? ah, certainly such notation makes Enterprise 
projects much bigger, if that was your point.

this programming language is so powerful, so "meta" level, that programmers 
need manually keep track of where they need to write +. and where +, or 
where that ugly Int64.add, and then they also need to manually do all type 
conversions..

well, maybe some people like this language, as it fits their thinking.. some 
people even like Perl, and use it for Enterprise programming.. as for me, 
Caml looks like some statically-typed Perl :).
sorry, but in my opinion Caml is very idiosyncratic for lispers. even SML, 
being essentially same, is less annoying -- at least it handles arithmetics 
automatically :)

)
(With-best-regards '(Alex Mizrahi) :aka 'killer_storm)
"scorn") 
From: Jon Harrop
Subject: Re: Lisper had to learn OCaml to get a job
Date: 
Message-ID: <4685030c$0$8758$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net>
Alex Mizrahi wrote:
> sorry, but in my opinion Caml is very idiosyncratic for lispers

Blub.

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
The OCaml Journal
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_journal/?usenet
From: Karol Skocik
Subject: Re: Lisper had to learn OCaml to get a job
Date: 
Message-ID: <1183060810.283272.171670@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com>
On Jun 28, 8:32 pm, Don Geddis <····@geddis.org> wrote:
> Jon Harrop <····@ffconsultancy.com> wrote on Thu, 28 Jun 2007:
>
> >  http://www.podval.org/~sds/ocaml-sucks.html
> >   "OCaml Language Sucks" by Sam Steingold
>
> Much thanks.  I had a vague distaste for OCaml before, but I didn't know
> much about it.  I appreciate the link with the many reasons why OCaml's
> language design is poor.
>
>         -- Don
> _______________________________________________________________________________
> Don Geddis                  http://don.geddis.org/              ····@geddis.org
> Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher.  That is, I
> used to, until she got an unlisted number.
>         -- Imitation Deep Thoughts

How can you say that ocaml language design sucks? Doesn't ocaml have
the *holy pattern matching* built in (tm) while CL only has several
external matchers around? ;)
From: André Thieme
Subject: Re: Lisper had to learn OCaml to get a job
Date: 
Message-ID: <f648d1$5tg$1@registered.motzarella.org>
Karol Skocik schrieb:

> How can you say that ocaml language design sucks? Doesn't ocaml have
> the *holy pattern matching* built in (tm) while CL only has several
> external matchers around? ;)

OCamls PM is not holy - it is not extensible.
I think it doesn't work for multidimensional arrays and not for
objects. In Lisp you can simply take one of the existing PMs, extend it
or change its syntax as much as you like, just by writing a few macros
on top of that existing PM.
From: André Thieme
Subject: Re: Lisper had to learn OCaml to get a job
Date: 
Message-ID: <f648g4$60n$1@registered.motzarella.org>
Karol Skocik schrieb:

> How can you say that ocaml language design sucks? Doesn't ocaml have
> the *holy pattern matching* built in (tm) while CL only has several
> external matchers around? ;)

OCamls PM is not holy - it is not extensible.
I think it doesn't work for multidimensional arrays and not for
objects. In Lisp you can simply take one of the existing PMs, extend it
or change its syntax as much as you like, just by writing a few macros
on top of that existing PM.
From: Jon Harrop
Subject: Re: Lisper had to learn OCaml to get a job
Date: 
Message-ID: <4685ffe7$0$8738$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net>
Andr� Thieme wrote:
> OCamls PM is not holy

It is a good foundation, like the pattern matchers in Standard ML and
Haskell. This is essential if you want good performance.

> - it is not extensible.

You can extend it using macros.

> I think it doesn't work for multidimensional arrays

It works on arrays and multidimensional arrays are just arrays of arrays in
OCaml:

# function [|[|1; 2|]; [|3; 4|]|] -> 0 | _ -> 1;;
- : int array array -> int = <fun>

> and not for objects.

Correct. However, objects are a form of encapsulation, so it does not really
make sense to pattern match over the object itself but, rather, over a
property (which can be done).

# let f o = match o#length with 0. -> 0 | _ -> 1;;
val f : < length : float; .. > -> int = <fun>

> In Lisp you can simply take one of the existing PMs, extend it 
> or change its syntax as much as you like, just by writing a few macros
> on top of that existing PM.

Everyone would be better off if someone built this foundation, IMHO.

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy
The OCaml Journal
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_journal/?usenet
From: Rainer Joswig
Subject: Re: Lisper had to learn OCaml to get a job
Date: 
Message-ID: <joswig-335FFF.17015728062007@news-europe.giganews.com>
In article <························@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net>,
 Jon Harrop <···@ffconsultancy.com> wrote:


Ignore Jon Harrop. He is a known spammer and troll.


                            ___________________________
                   /|  /|  |                          |
                   ||__||  |       Please don't       |
                  /   O O\__           feed           |
                 /          \       the trolls        |
                /      \     \                        |
               /   _    \     \ ---------------------- 
              /    |\____\     \     ||                
             /     | | | |\____/     ||                
            /       \|_|_|/   |    __||                
           /  /  \            |____| ||                
          /   |   | /|        |      --|               
          |   |   |//         |____  --|               
   * _    |  |_|_|_|          |     \-/                
*-- _--\ _ \     //           |                        
  /  _     \\ _ //   |        /                        
*  /   \_ /- | -     |       |                         
  *      ___ c_c_c_C/ \C_c_c_c____________

-- 
http://lispm.dyndns.org
From: Kaz Kylheku
Subject: Asshole John Harrop now writes lies about people.
Date: 
Message-ID: <1183052962.562837.264790@o61g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>
On Jun 28, 7:49 am, Jon Harrop <····@ffconsultancy.com> wrote:
> Here is an interesting case of Lisper blub:

There is no claim anywhere on the page that Sam Steingold had to learn
OCaml in order to get a job. Sam doesn't reveal at all how he uses
OCaml at work, or why, or even whether it was imposed as a
requirement.
From: sds
Subject: Re: Lisper had to learn OCaml to get a job
Date: 
Message-ID: <1184600686.095175.70940@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>
>> Lisper had to learn OCaml to get a job

It would be more accurate to say "a lisper wanted to know whether the
fuss about ML and static typing was justified, so he found a job that
paid him to learn OCaml" :-)