

"FP is a real competitive edge for a company" - The commercial potential of OCaml/FP [PDF] - paulgb
http://www.janestcapital.com/yaron_minsky-cufp_2006.pdf

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staunch
OT: Note to anyone who knows the Scribd guys, please have them create a
feature that lets me do something like this:

[http://www.janestcapital.com.pdf.scribd.com/yaron_minsky-
cuf...](http://www.janestcapital.com.pdf.scribd.com/yaron_minsky-
cufp_2006.pdf)

That way I don't have to download/upload or worry about copyrights but I can
still view it on scribd automagically. I promise it will make them more
popular.

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stuki
For the perhaps less hardcore, and less Blub averse, F# is a caml
implementation/extension? on .net. Less/no need to write homegrown, production
quality c/c++ interfaces, since it integrates with the rest of .net. It will
compile some/most ocaml code without too much change. I can't help but think
using it, or at least being aware of it, can benefit some software startups.

~~~
paulgb
F# does look cool, and .net integration is definitely a killer feature. I
haven't tried it yet, but I plan to once I am a bit better at OCaml.

~~~
jkush
I work with .NET by day and after spending quite a bit of time learning Lisp,
I can tell you that even with a killer feature like that, it's not even close.

~~~
paulgb
It isn't close to what?

~~~
jkush
Lisp.

~~~
paulgb
F# might not be as conceptually cool as lisp (I don't know enough of either to
comment yet), but I would bet that enterprise users, especially those who
already have a .net codebase, would rather switch to F# than lisp. Not to
mention that in the case of the former, it wouldn't have to be a switch; F# is
meant to be used alongside C# instead of replacing it.

~~~
jkush
You're right about the probability of .net coders using F# over lisp. That
said, F# is still a very big conceptual leap even if it does compile down to
IL and run alongside all the other CLR compliant languages. The leap is having
to shift your thinking from object-oriented programming to value-oriented
programming.

The number of language users is not a function of how good that language is
(ask PG or any lisp advocate!).

I will almost certainly learn F#, for some of the reasons above, but I don't
think it'll ever match the elegance and succinctness you get with Lisp.

~~~
paulgb
I agree that the number of users is not a function of how good the language
is. And you are right about the conceptual difference between C# and F#. OCaml
from the beginning prioritized practicality instead of elegance, so you are
surely right that F# will never match the elegance of lisp. That isn't the
goal though.

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paulgb
Here is an longer article from the same company on their experience with
OCaml: <http://www.haskell.org/sitewiki/images/0/03/TMR-Issue7.pdf>

~~~
tuukkah
I notice I haven't read TMR since it became a pdf this year. Source text of
the article seems to be available for those who prefer such:
<http://sneezy.cs.nott.ac.uk/darcs/TMR/Issue7/JaneSt.tex>

I have to read about the company later, but let me at this point add a link to
more such stories at the Commercial Users of Functional Programming web site:
<http://cufp.galois.com/>

------
Zak
As mentioned in the presentation, using any LFSP provides a huge advantage
when hiring: most of the people who aren't smart enough have already been
weeded out.

------
prakash
Jane St. is also doing the OCaml Summer Project:
<http://osp2007.janestcapital.com/>

