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If I learned OCaml, what type of prospects would I have? Fairly seasoned generalist, mostly writing Go these days. Lots of plumbing with LLMs etc. Would love

If I learned OCaml, what type of prospects would I have? Fairly seasoned generalist, mostly writing Go these days. Lots of plumbing with LLMs etc. Would love to learn something new but am driven by a goal in mind (ie OCaml exposes me to "X industry") Is that a thing?

iLoveOncall 1y ago
Learning OCaml exposes you to the sadomasochist industry, that's about it.
- HocusLocus 1y ago
  name checks out: iLoveOCaml
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
wk_end 1y ago
Probably the biggest sectors where functional programming is used are finance and crypto (which is arguably finance). Some companies use OCaml itself, other companies might use other languages like Haskell where OCaml knowledge would be valuable. You can see a list on the OCaml website of companies using it, or read some success stories (https://ocaml.org/industrial-users https://ocaml.org/industrial-users).
Rendello 1y ago
The trading firm Jane Street is the big OCaml shop, they have a great podcast about all their tech. Each episode is someone from a team talking about the tool they've built, and their whole ecosystem is pretty much bespoke OCaml tooling. - https://signalsandthreads.com/ https://signalsandthreads.com/ (It's one of three programming podcasts I consistently listen to these days, the others being On The Metal and Developer Voices.)
- xedrac 1y ago
  Bespoke tooling makes me think that the standard tooling is lacking. How does it compare to Rust's tooling?
  - mbac32768 1y ago
    lol imagine everything that's good about Rust tooling but significantly less good or non-existent instead (the VS Code plugin for OCaml is actually decent though)
    - yawaramin 1y ago
      The VS Code plugin is, like, 90% of the developer experience of most devs. The fact that it's rock-solid in OCaml should automatically bump us up to at least a B grade. Meanwhile the dune build system is powerful and flexible, and compile times are actually blazing fast, unlike Rust's famous slow builds. So yeah, there are pros and cons on each side, I wouldn't say it's a clear win.
  - no_wizard 1y ago
    The article isn’t a very technical one. I’d wager when they say tooling they mean any in house program they use as a tool, as opposed to what we as programmers would think of, like compilers, dev tools etc. Ocaml has a pretty robust ecosystem of good dev tools and build tools.
    - Rendello 1y ago
      If you're talking about me (GP), I meant that Jane Street has built an entire ecosystem around OCaml, from their customer-facing and backend software to traditional OCaml tooling (like build systems). That being said, all I know is from the podcast I linked. I haven't touched OCaml (yet?) myself.
keysdev 1y ago
OCaml is like nim, not many ppl knows about, but it is one those tech once over the learning curve it just gives developer an extra edge. It is a very good alternative to memory safe language such as Rust and Swift. It is just NOT backed by big corporations. Which some might see it as a disadvantage, IMHO it is an advantage. Look at Perl, Linux, Hono all initially made by one guy. With out a big group, golden handcuffs and corporate politics, things might actually gets done.
- sealeck 1y ago
  Lots of cool stuff does seep out of Jane Street, though. See for example https://oxcaml.org/ https://oxcaml.org/ as probably the most recent very public example
- anta40 1y ago
  Nowadays, I don't think Linux is 100%, community-driven only software, considering it also has backup from big corps like Intel, IBM, Oracle, etc etc. In the similar way, most programming language implementations used in industry (Java, C#, Go etc) also have big corps backup. My main job is mobile app development, and OCaml definitely lacks significant menpower on this side, so if I were going to use it for my job... perhaps backend stuff? Or what?
AdieuToLogic 1y ago
> If I learned OCaml, what type of prospects would I have? At one point, I believe KDE[0] had OCaml integrations and/or community support. 0 - https://kde.org/ https://kde.org/
dewey 1y ago
Jane Street would be one of the big names that also sponsors a bunch of events / resources.
abathologist 1y ago
See https://ocaml.org/industrial-users https://ocaml.org/industrial-users Current industry uses are largely in specialist areas including compiler engineering, static analyses, formal verification systems, and systems programming in critical domains.

iLoveOncall 1y ago

Learning OCaml exposes you to the sadomasochist industry, that's about it.

HocusLocus 1y ago
name checks out: iLoveOCaml

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

wk_end 1y ago

Probably the biggest sectors where functional programming is used are finance and crypto (which is arguably finance). Some companies use OCaml itself, other companies might use other languages like Haskell where OCaml knowledge would be valuable. You can see a list on the OCaml website of companies using it, or read some success stories (https://ocaml.org/industrial-users https://ocaml.org/industrial-users).

Rendello 1y ago

The trading firm Jane Street is the big OCaml shop, they have a great podcast about all their tech. Each episode is someone from a team talking about the tool they've built, and their whole ecosystem is pretty much bespoke OCaml tooling. - https://signalsandthreads.com/ https://signalsandthreads.com/ (It's one of three programming podcasts I consistently listen to these days, the others being On The Metal and Developer Voices.)

xedrac 1y ago
Bespoke tooling makes me think that the standard tooling is lacking. How does it compare to Rust's tooling?
- mbac32768 1y ago
  lol imagine everything that's good about Rust tooling but significantly less good or non-existent instead (the VS Code plugin for OCaml is actually decent though)
  - yawaramin 1y ago
    The VS Code plugin is, like, 90% of the developer experience of most devs. The fact that it's rock-solid in OCaml should automatically bump us up to at least a B grade. Meanwhile the dune build system is powerful and flexible, and compile times are actually blazing fast, unlike Rust's famous slow builds. So yeah, there are pros and cons on each side, I wouldn't say it's a clear win.
- no_wizard 1y ago
  The article isn’t a very technical one. I’d wager when they say tooling they mean any in house program they use as a tool, as opposed to what we as programmers would think of, like compilers, dev tools etc. Ocaml has a pretty robust ecosystem of good dev tools and build tools.
  - Rendello 1y ago
    If you're talking about me (GP), I meant that Jane Street has built an entire ecosystem around OCaml, from their customer-facing and backend software to traditional OCaml tooling (like build systems). That being said, all I know is from the podcast I linked. I haven't touched OCaml (yet?) myself.

keysdev 1y ago

OCaml is like nim, not many ppl knows about, but it is one those tech once over the learning curve it just gives developer an extra edge. It is a very good alternative to memory safe language such as Rust and Swift. It is just NOT backed by big corporations. Which some might see it as a disadvantage, IMHO it is an advantage. Look at Perl, Linux, Hono all initially made by one guy. With out a big group, golden handcuffs and corporate politics, things might actually gets done.

sealeck 1y ago
Lots of cool stuff does seep out of Jane Street, though. See for example https://oxcaml.org/ https://oxcaml.org/ as probably the most recent very public example
anta40 1y ago
Nowadays, I don't think Linux is 100%, community-driven only software, considering it also has backup from big corps like Intel, IBM, Oracle, etc etc. In the similar way, most programming language implementations used in industry (Java, C#, Go etc) also have big corps backup. My main job is mobile app development, and OCaml definitely lacks significant menpower on this side, so if I were going to use it for my job... perhaps backend stuff? Or what?

AdieuToLogic 1y ago

> If I learned OCaml, what type of prospects would I have? At one point, I believe KDE[0] had OCaml integrations and/or community support. 0 - https://kde.org/ https://kde.org/

dewey 1y ago

Jane Street would be one of the big names that also sponsors a bunch of events / resources.

abathologist 1y ago

See https://ocaml.org/industrial-users https://ocaml.org/industrial-users Current industry uses are largely in specialist areas including compiler engineering, static analyses, formal verification systems, and systems programming in critical domains.