
Multicore OCaml: March 2020 update - sadiq
https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/multicore-ocaml-march-2020-update/5406
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sadiq
I've been hacking on the OCaml multicore GC recently and am happy to answer
questions anyone has.

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vijaybritto
When is it expected to be released?

~~~
sadiq
(Speaking personally and not for OCaml Labs who are driving most of the
multicore work at the moment)

You can use multicore right now: [https://github.com/ocaml-multicore/ocaml-
multicore](https://github.com/ocaml-multicore/ocaml-multicore) though it's
currently at an older version of OCaml, 4.06.1.

There's work currently going on to rebase on to OCaml trunk, show-stopping
bugs aside there should be a more up to date version of multicore in the next
couple of months - then the focus will be on upstreaming.

Hard to give a reasonable timeframe for release because that's going to depend
a lot on how things get upstream.

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thegreatpeter
I'm very excited about this because it means ReasonML will be able to take
advantage of multi cores for server apps :)

~~~
xfer
WHat do you mean by reasonml for server apps? If you mean running js(output of
bucklescript) then no it will likely not benefit node users.

~~~
cies
You can compile to native and use the whole OCaml ecosystem over there (in
stead of the NPM ecosystem when doing client-side or Node-based-server-side)
to write your apps.

For instance this fast OCaml http server:
[https://github.com/inhabitedtype/httpaf](https://github.com/inhabitedtype/httpaf)

And you can even share types between client and server :)

~~~
xfer
What's the point of using a different syntax if you are going to be
interacting,reading,fixing code in ocaml syntax?

~~~
cies
Lower barrier to entry. Facebook is not pushing its own next JavaScript.

They lost the Flow-TypeScript battle. And they learned, they wanted even more
typesafety I guess.

Since TypeScript also compiles to JS, bringing "something a little less like
JS, but a lot more safe" to the table seemed a better idea that pushing
"unfamiliar syntax, but heay, it compiles to JS"

~~~
sikan
Flow and ReasonML are started by completely different people/teams inside the
company. From what I heard, Facebook the organization does not care that much
about OSS, and software devs have to work really hard to convince to spend
company time to maintain an OSS software.

If there is any battle, I predict will probably be between Flow and Reason
inside the Facebook org because of competing solutions.

------
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22443428](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22443428)

