I apologize for the plug, but I invite folks who like OCaml to check-out Tezos, a project for a self-amending blockchain in OCaml. <a href="http://github.com/tezos" rel="nofollow">http://github.com/tezos</a><p>I think it's a really neat piece of engineering that demonstrates the strength of the language. We have some really nice uses of the GADT and we try and squeeze as much guarantees as we can out of the type system. The modules give us a natural way to follow the principle of least authority by restricting the visible surface of each implementation layer as much as possible.<p>Some of the core Tezos developers are also behind the recent mooc and work on the OCaml compiler.
Damn, still no modular implicits. And no multicore yet, either. Seems like they keep getting pushed back.<p>At least BuckleScript is progressing quickly.
Just finishing OCaml course at Paris Diderot<p>www.fun-mooc.fr/login?next=/courses/parisdiderot/56002S02<p>Really cool language and opened my eyes on how some constructs are being used.<p>Multicore is definitely must for functional languages.(sorry random thought)
Glad the release cycle is speeding up, but kinda underwhelmed by the lack of changes which have been floating around in "for the next release" limbo here for a while (multicore, modular implicits, etc.). Either way, lots of great work went into this and I'm happy to see the state of OCaml continuing to evolve for the better. Thanks for all the hard work!
The changes are explained with some examples here [0].
Flambda is finally on, but comes with a regression :( [1].<p>[0]: <a href="https://github.com/gasche/ocaml-releases-change-explanation/wiki/4.04.0-changes-explanation" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/gasche/ocaml-releases-change-explanation/...</a>
[1]: <a href="https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list/2016-11/msg00000.html" rel="nofollow">https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list/2016-11/msg00000....</a>
I would like to see a language like haskell with no delayed or lazy evaluation so that one can better predict performance. Haskell has a great community and a charm that I would like for Ocaml. Don't know if Jane Street is still advocating their Ocaml core or kernel. F#, ml, haskell and OCaml, and a strong language for parallelism whose name I don't remember are hints that we need a better language. Haskell is not prepared for real world :), and OCaml is a turtle moving target.
I really like ocaml, but it could do with better community management I think. Eg it's been more than one week that the links of the news section on the homepage result in a white page. This might deter newcomers to even try it.