A question about Ocaml

A few ReasonML books:

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Oh, that’s actually great! I didn’t know these existed. But then again, since I DGAF about syntax, lexing etc (it’s all the same, just squint mang) I never look for these things. But for sure, for sure, for sure, I am dead certain that this is the avenue to bring a lot of new users to Ocaml. That’s what happened with Javascript, and a big part of why Javascript kicked Java’s butt.

I’m happy that I was wrong.

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I concur with this, even outside of the context of functional programming (I agree ML-esque syntax is more pleasant for functional programming, no wonders newer languages like e.g. Idris and PureScript are in the same tradition, unlike Scala). But for me it was easier to learn logic programming in Prolog than doing the same in miniKanren which is based on Scheme, a language I already knew at that time. Same with Factor, I found it easier to pick it up using its syntax than a Java-esque translation of it could ever be.

But it seems that most programmers prefer syntactic familiarity and prefer to use frameworks and libraries using lots of magic under the hood than to use languages where such functionality is built-in.

(Case in point, dependent typing in Idris vs Haskell)

Anecdotally, I heard that it is, indeed. It’s not that it’s familiar, it’s just that curly braces and parentheses around arguments really help see what is a function name, what is an argument name, and where blocks begin and end. It’s something people visually rely on a LOT when orienting themselves in unfamiliar code bases.

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