"ocaml_beginners"::[] What is ocaml good for?

Hello!

I've recently met ocaml through a friend and I'm willing to learn more
about, so, I gently ask you: What is ocaml good for? What kind of
applications are usually writen in ocaml?

Thanks in advance,

Marcelo.

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Marcelo de Moraes Serpa wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I've recently met ocaml through a friend and I'm willing to learn more
> about, so, I gently ask you: What is ocaml good for?

When you what to use functional programming and/or imperative
programming and/or OO programming

When you want strong typing

...

What kind of
> applications are usually writen in ocaml?

MLDonkey, PXP, Unison, Galax are famous apps written in Ocaml

...

)

Ernesto

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Hey Ernesto, thanks for the reply...

I've also heard about ocaml being good for writing compilers... is it a
common to write compilers with ocaml?

Marcelo.

On 1/8/07, Stalkern 2 < stalkern2%40tin.it">stalkern2tin.it&gt; wrote:
&gt;
> Marcelo de Moraes Serpa wrote:
&gt; > Hello!
&gt; >
> > I've recently met ocaml through a friend and I'm willing to learn more
> > about, so, I gently ask you: What is ocaml good for?
>
> When you what to use functional programming and/or imperative
> programming and/or OO programming
>
&gt; When you want strong typing
&gt;
> ...
>
> What kind of
> > applications are usually writen in ocaml?
&gt;
> MLDonkey, PXP, Unison, Galax are famous apps written in Ocaml
>;
> ...
>
> )
>
&gt; Ernesto
&gt;
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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> Hey Ernesto, thanks for the reply...
>
> I've also heard about ocaml being good for writing compilers... is it a
> common to write compilers with ocaml?
&gt;
> Marcelo.
>

The OCaml compiler is written in OCaml.

Some other examples of compilers written in OCaml are on the OCaml
Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCaml#Applications

And here is a discussion of why ML languages, such as OCaml, are good
for writing compilers:
http://flint.cs.yale.edu/cs421/case-for-ml.html

I was originally attracted to OCaml because it produced very fast
executables and supported many of the features that I liked in Lisp.
As I learn more about OCaml, I like it more and more. Now I would use
OCaml (or the Microsoft variant F#) for just about anything,
regardless of whether I need its execution speed.

Eric

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Marcelo de Moraes Serpa wrote:
&gt; Hey Ernesto, thanks for the reply...
>
> I've also heard about ocaml being good for writing compilers... is it a
> common to write compilers with ocaml?
&gt;

I'd say so: OcaML is good at that because it is a... ML. You can browse
this thread:

http://compilers.iecc.com/comparch/article/98-07-220

Ernesto

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Thank you guys, this was really helpful ^^

Marcelo.

On 1/8/07, Stalkern 2 < stalkern2%40tin.it">stalkern2tin.it&gt; wrote:
&gt;
> Marcelo de Moraes Serpa wrote:
&gt; > Hey Ernesto, thanks for the reply...
> >
> > I've also heard about ocaml being good for writing compilers... is it a
> > common to write compilers with ocaml?
&gt; >
>
> I'd say so: OcaML is good at that because it is a... ML. You can browse
&gt; this thread:
&gt;
> http://compilers.iecc.com/comparch/article/98-07-220
>
> Ernesto
&gt;
>

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On Mon, Jan 08, 2007 at 09:20:42AM -0200, Marcelo de Moraes Serpa wrote:
&gt; I've recently met ocaml through a friend and I'm willing to learn more
> about, so, I gently ask you: What is ocaml good for? What kind of
> applications are usually writen in ocaml?

It's an application programming language - good for a replacement for
things like C++/Java, less good at text handling for replacing
scripting languages. It is very concise. You can write hugely
complicated algorithms in fewer lines of code than C++, and far fewer
lines of code than dinosaurs like Java. It can also be very fast
(within a few % of an equivalent C program), although the tactics you
use to get speed are sometimes at odds with those you use to write
concise programs.

Have a look here to see what my old company were using it for:

http://merjis.com/developers/

Many tutorials from this page: http://www.ocaml-tutorial.org/

Rich.

--
Richard Jones
Red Hat UK Limited

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