On: SML#: a new Standard ML family programming language

[more_original]

I'm not sure it is right to speak of "most people". Many people use OCaml these days. For instance, I have the impression that in work on program verification and static analysis OCaml is more popular than Haskell. Coq is written in OCaml, for example. The Haskell community much more vocal though.

Harper has strong opinions, but he has a few points. Haskell may be great, but one should be aware that it is not an improvement on SML in each and every respect. For example, SML has a much better module system than Haskell.

[omaranto → more_original]

Haskellers complain about Haskell's module system and say that SML's is better more often than any MLer, I think.

[thirsteh → more_original]

F# might already be more popular than both, but it's hard to tell for sure.

[more_original → thirsteh]

Yes, that's my point. We shouldn't say that most people use X because it doesn't seem clear cut at this point.

[thirsteh → more_original]

It's not really an ethical problem, just an estimation. If SML was the only similar language, surely a lot more people would be using it.

[zachsnow → more_original]

Perhaps OCaml gets a lot of use in that community because a lot of that community is French -- that was my experience, anyway. And a lot of the folks in that community don't seem as vocal (to this side of computing) only because they are using different channels and complaining about different stuff!

It was actually surprising (and somewhat annoying) that Twelf is written in SML.