5 ms·

Hobby language? Plenty of commercial and important software has been written in OCaml. Hell, the early versions of the Rust compiler were written in OCaml...

littlestymaar 1y ago
Realistically unless you want to work at Jane Street or Inria (the French computer science lab where Ocaml was made), if you want to use Ocaml, it's going to be as a hobby.
- School-Cotton 1y ago
  There is also Ahrefs.
- dismalaf 1y ago
  You can say that for almost any language that's not C/C++, C#, Java, Python and JS. Rust is just barely beginning to become "corporate". Even Ruby, which is pretty mainstream, has relatively few jobs compared to the big corporate languages.
  - littlestymaar 1y ago
    Non-hobby languages is a narrow club, yes. Your list is at least missing PHP, Typescript, Swift, Go, Lua, Ruby and Rust though. But Ocaml really doesn't belong anywhere close to this list.
    - dismalaf 1y ago
      Ummm Lua? It's a nice little scripting language, but literally never seen a job ad for a job using mostly Lua. It's almost the definition of hobby language... OCaml runs software that billions use, is used by financial and defense firms, plus Facebook. But Lua? By that metric I'm throwing in every language I've ever seen a job for... R, Haskell, Odin, Lisp, etc... Edit - this site is basically a meme at this point. Roblox is industrial strength but Facebook, Dassault and trading firms are "hobby". Lol. Also, I'm not dissing Lua, there's just irony in calling Lua industrial but not OCaml...
      - School-Cotton 1y ago
        LuaJIT is widely used for writing Nginx plugins.
      - maleldil 1y ago
        Lua is widely used for scripting in games. It might not be the main language of the project, but it's still very common.
      - zoky 1y ago
        Roblox apps are built in Lua.
      - epcoa 1y ago
        Lua has petered out a bit but it has been used as a scripting and config language for a ton of games and commercial embedded. Not a hobby language, not typically a main implementation language but that doesn’t mean no commercial use. posix/bash shell isn’t a hobby language either, but unless you’re Tom Lord or something (RIP) you’re not doing the entire project in it. Do realize that luajit for years was bankrolled by corporations.
      - zer00eyz 1y ago
        > But Lua? Lua, Bash ... these are birds of a feather. They are the glue holding things together all over the place. No one thinks about them but if they disappeared over night a LOT of stuff would fall apart.
      - littlestymaar 1y ago
        As others already pointed out, Lua is used in tons of video games as the scripting language. The most famous example being World of Warcraft, but it's far from the only one. If you play, or have played, games, you almost certainly have run software built with Lua without realizing it. It's not because a language isn't relevant in your personal coding niche that it's not industrially relevant.
        dismalaf 1y ago
        I'm simply pointing out the irony in calling a (mostly game) scripting language like Lua "industrial" while calling a language used by FAANG, defense companies and finance companies a "hobby" language.
  - TuxSH 1y ago
    Speaking of Ruby, its usage has cratered down in the past decade: https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2024/1 https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2024/1
    - dismalaf 1y ago
      Well, it was hyped beyond belief at one point... Kind of nice that it's back to being niche, I'd hate for it to become Python or TS. I kind of like that Ruby is still focusing on single developer/small team productivity.
vlovich123 1y ago
How may be the wrong word, but it’s definitely a niche language and significantly less software is written in it
mr_00ff00 1y ago
Maybe I’m wrong, but I only really know of Jane Street for OCaml, meanwhile FAANG all has at least some rust code. Also I would argue the rust compiler started as a hobby project
- airstrike 1y ago
  Also Bloomberg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28278553 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28278553
- dismalaf 1y ago
  Facebook Messenger's backend was/is OCaml... React was originally written in SML, then OCaml, then whatever it is now. And a bunch of places use it for various things. https://ocaml.org/industrial-users https://ocaml.org/industrial-users
  - one-note 1y ago
    React is and has always been javascript…
    - shakna 1y ago
      Not what the author of React says: > Yes, the first prototype of React was written in SML; we then moved onto OCaml. > Jordan transcribed the prototype into JS for adoption; the SML version of React, however great it might be, would have died in obscurity. The Reason project's biggest goal is to show that OCaml is actually a viable, incremental and familiar-looking choice. We've been promoting this a lot but I guess one blog post and testimonial helps way more. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15209814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15209814
      - one-note 1y ago
        Sure, a prototype of an idea that would eventually become React was rewritten into JS to create the initial seed of the software that would eventually be called React.

littlestymaar 1y ago

Realistically unless you want to work at Jane Street or Inria (the French computer science lab where Ocaml was made), if you want to use Ocaml, it's going to be as a hobby.

School-Cotton 1y ago
There is also Ahrefs.
dismalaf 1y ago
You can say that for almost any language that's not C/C++, C#, Java, Python and JS. Rust is just barely beginning to become "corporate". Even Ruby, which is pretty mainstream, has relatively few jobs compared to the big corporate languages.
- littlestymaar 1y ago
  Non-hobby languages is a narrow club, yes. Your list is at least missing PHP, Typescript, Swift, Go, Lua, Ruby and Rust though. But Ocaml really doesn't belong anywhere close to this list.
  - dismalaf 1y ago
    Ummm Lua? It's a nice little scripting language, but literally never seen a job ad for a job using mostly Lua. It's almost the definition of hobby language... OCaml runs software that billions use, is used by financial and defense firms, plus Facebook. But Lua? By that metric I'm throwing in every language I've ever seen a job for... R, Haskell, Odin, Lisp, etc... Edit - this site is basically a meme at this point. Roblox is industrial strength but Facebook, Dassault and trading firms are "hobby". Lol. Also, I'm not dissing Lua, there's just irony in calling Lua industrial but not OCaml...
    - School-Cotton 1y ago
      LuaJIT is widely used for writing Nginx plugins.
    - maleldil 1y ago
      Lua is widely used for scripting in games. It might not be the main language of the project, but it's still very common.
    - zoky 1y ago
      Roblox apps are built in Lua.
    - epcoa 1y ago
      Lua has petered out a bit but it has been used as a scripting and config language for a ton of games and commercial embedded. Not a hobby language, not typically a main implementation language but that doesn’t mean no commercial use. posix/bash shell isn’t a hobby language either, but unless you’re Tom Lord or something (RIP) you’re not doing the entire project in it. Do realize that luajit for years was bankrolled by corporations.
    - zer00eyz 1y ago
      > But Lua? Lua, Bash ... these are birds of a feather. They are the glue holding things together all over the place. No one thinks about them but if they disappeared over night a LOT of stuff would fall apart.
    - littlestymaar 1y ago
      As others already pointed out, Lua is used in tons of video games as the scripting language. The most famous example being World of Warcraft, but it's far from the only one. If you play, or have played, games, you almost certainly have run software built with Lua without realizing it. It's not because a language isn't relevant in your personal coding niche that it's not industrially relevant.
      - dismalaf 1y ago
        I'm simply pointing out the irony in calling a (mostly game) scripting language like Lua "industrial" while calling a language used by FAANG, defense companies and finance companies a "hobby" language.
- TuxSH 1y ago
  Speaking of Ruby, its usage has cratered down in the past decade: https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2024/1 https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2024/1
  - dismalaf 1y ago
    Well, it was hyped beyond belief at one point... Kind of nice that it's back to being niche, I'd hate for it to become Python or TS. I kind of like that Ruby is still focusing on single developer/small team productivity.

vlovich123 1y ago

How may be the wrong word, but it’s definitely a niche language and significantly less software is written in it

mr_00ff00 1y ago

Maybe I’m wrong, but I only really know of Jane Street for OCaml, meanwhile FAANG all has at least some rust code. Also I would argue the rust compiler started as a hobby project

airstrike 1y ago
Also Bloomberg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28278553 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28278553
dismalaf 1y ago
Facebook Messenger's backend was/is OCaml... React was originally written in SML, then OCaml, then whatever it is now. And a bunch of places use it for various things. https://ocaml.org/industrial-users https://ocaml.org/industrial-users
- one-note 1y ago
  React is and has always been javascript…
  - shakna 1y ago
    Not what the author of React says: > Yes, the first prototype of React was written in SML; we then moved onto OCaml. > Jordan transcribed the prototype into JS for adoption; the SML version of React, however great it might be, would have died in obscurity. The Reason project's biggest goal is to show that OCaml is actually a viable, incremental and familiar-looking choice. We've been promoting this a lot but I guess one blog post and testimonial helps way more. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15209814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15209814
    - one-note 1y ago
      Sure, a prototype of an idea that would eventually become React was rewritten into JS to create the initial seed of the software that would eventually be called React.