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Yeah, I kinda feel like this whole project is pointless. As many warts as OCaml's syntax has, for the most part I actually like it. It seems like Reason is sol

Yeah, I kinda feel like this whole project is pointless. As many warts as OCaml's syntax has, for the most part I actually like it. It seems like Reason is solving a non-problem. When I first went to the webpage, and saw "Build Systems Rapidly", I thought maybe it was a new build system for OCaml. I was hoping it would be a Cargo-style build system/package manager for OCaml.

jordwalke 10y ago
"As many warts as OCaml's syntax has, for the most part I actually like it." This is for those people who do not like OCaml because of those warts. If you are one who is already sold on OCaml, it's very easy to forget how many there really are. Regarding "Build Systems Rapidly": Please hang in there and stay tuned. The syntax is there to help people learn ML rapidly. The Merlin integration and syntax formatting tooling is there to help people become productive rapidly inside their editors. Next, we have specified a workflow for actually building systems rapidly (as in compiling large projects with namespacing rules). Instead of our previous approach where we just drop a more polished project with many of the goals accomplished, this kind of project benefits from expertise that is distributed across the entire industry and for that, it's better to be open earlier. I hope you can appreciate and encourage this kind of openness.
- eru 10y ago
  I'm looking forward to having an OCaml version that looks more like Haskell. :)
  - jordwalke 10y ago
    To start, we have "fixed" type parameter application syntax. (Most people see this as a win and now matches Haskell IIRC). Some have requested ability for type annotation ayntax to be above the value it annotates.
    - eru 10y ago
      By the way, do you even need to work towards _one_ better syntax? Seems like you should be able to support mostly whatever syntax the user wants? (Within reason.)

jordwalke 10y ago

"As many warts as OCaml's syntax has, for the most part I actually like it." This is for those people who do not like OCaml because of those warts. If you are one who is already sold on OCaml, it's very easy to forget how many there really are. Regarding "Build Systems Rapidly": Please hang in there and stay tuned. The syntax is there to help people learn ML rapidly. The Merlin integration and syntax formatting tooling is there to help people become productive rapidly inside their editors. Next, we have specified a workflow for actually building systems rapidly (as in compiling large projects with namespacing rules). Instead of our previous approach where we just drop a more polished project with many of the goals accomplished, this kind of project benefits from expertise that is distributed across the entire industry and for that, it's better to be open earlier. I hope you can appreciate and encourage this kind of openness.

eru 10y ago
I'm looking forward to having an OCaml version that looks more like Haskell. :)
- jordwalke 10y ago
  To start, we have "fixed" type parameter application syntax. (Most people see this as a win and now matches Haskell IIRC). Some have requested ability for type annotation ayntax to be above the value it annotates.
  - eru 10y ago
    By the way, do you even need to work towards _one_ better syntax? Seems like you should be able to support mostly whatever syntax the user wants? (Within reason.)