# Expanding ocaml appeal to future open source application developers

**URL:** <https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/expanding-ocaml-appeal-to-future-open-source-application-developers/7738>\
**Category:** Community\
**Created:** [April 25, 2021, 4:01am UTC](https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/expanding-ocaml-appeal-to-future-open-source-application-developers/7738 "2021-04-25T04:01:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 55

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**Author:** ![mro](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/discuss.ocaml.org/mro/32/2496_2.png) [@mro](https://discuss.ocaml.org/u/mro)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2021, 9:17pm UTC](https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/expanding-ocaml-appeal-to-future-open-source-application-developers/7738/55 "2021-08-11T21:17:03Z")

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why does it have to expand? What benefit comes from courting the masses?

Speaking for myself (as I currently have no other surveys at hand), I was appealed a bit more than a year ago exactly by OCaml being

1. functional
2. aged, so likely to be around in decades, still
3. seemingly quality-aware, mature community
4. no GAFAM in the critical path (at least I thought so not being aware of the role of github in opam)
5. feasible on small hardware like the raspi, too (no, Haskell, you’re not)
6. static linking
7. nice stickers [OCaml Stickers via 🐌](https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/ocaml-stickers-via/6845)

I hesitated, because of the syntax variants (ppx!), standard lib confusion and dune configs scaring me. Avoided complexity here and never regreted, however.

The stuff I do is trivial and opinionated stuff for now, like [https://mro.name/form2xhtml](https://mro.name/form2xhtml) or [https://demo.mro.name/geohash.cgi/](https://demo.mro.name/geohash.cgi/) until I find resources to translate 🇩🇪 [https://mro.name/o/2021-03-30-142424-prototypefund10-068.pdf](https://mro.name/o/2021-03-30-142424-prototypefund10-068.pdf) to english, let alone finally do it in 🐪 OCaml.

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