[clue-talk] Stupid OCaml tricks

[Dennis J Perkins]

On Mon, 2006-08-14 at 20:58 -0600, Matt Gushee wrote:
> Dennis J Perkins wrote:
> 
> >> During my presentation last week, Dennis asked something along the lines 
> >> of "what makes OCaml a better language for you?" Can't recall the exact 
> >> words, but I believe that was the gist of it. I don't think I answered 
> >> the question very well, so let me give y'all an example that might give 
> >> you a better idea.
> > 
> > My question was, "How does OCaml make something complex simple?"
> > Maybe a better question is how does it simplify somthing that is hard to
> > do in other languages?
> 
> Oh, yeah, I remember that now. It's a good question, and there's 
> probably a good answer to it, but ... I don't know. I can't think about 
> it anymore just now. And whatever I say, somebody will probably point 
> out how wrong I am ... getting harder and harder to believe I am right 
> about anything, so I think I'll just shut the fuck up and go die somewhere.
> 
> Sorry, I know you're sincerely interested and deserve a good answer. I 
> am just fucked up and everything I try to do just makes it worse.
> 


Yeah, sometimes it's hard to find that example you need.  I haven't
tried OCaml, so I don't know its strengths and weaknesses.  Maybe it's
not appropriate for simple tasks (Java isn't, in my opinion), but if it
is attracting interest and people are using it, it has some utility.
And that is all that matters.