hi Jon Harrop,

[ “Haskell's virginity” by Jon Harrop
http://flyingfrogblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/haskells-virginity.html
(a report on OCaml and Haskell use in linux)
]

First, i like to thank you for the informative study on particular
aspect of OCaml and Haskell popularity. I think it is informative, and
the effort of your report in to some degree non-trivial.

With that said, i do believe your opinion are often biased and tends
peddle your products and website about OCaml.

In particular, i don't think the conclusion you made, about how OCaml
is one order of magnitude more use in the industry, being valid.

For example, many commercial use of languages are not public. As a
example, Wolfram Research, the maker of Mathematica, sells more
Mathematica than any lisp companies combined.
This can be gathered from company size and financial records. However,
if you go by your methods, such as polling stats from linux distros,
or other means of checking stats among open source communities, you
won't find any indication of this.

Granted, your study is specifically narrowed to OpenSource project
queries. But there is still a fact about commercial, non-public use,
which often are far more serious and important. Open Source projects
are typically just happensances of some joe hacker's enthus about a
lang, and open source products's audience is again often not with any
serious considerations.

For example, your report contains FFTW, Unison, Darcs. Unison is a bi-
way file syncing tool, which i personally use daily. Darcs is a
revision system for source code. FFTW, as i learned, is a lib for
fourier transform. These tools, basically are results of some joe
hacker who happens to love or use a particular lang. Their users,
basically use them because there isn't others around (in the case of
Darcs, because it uses a lang they like). The other tools listed in
your report: MLDonkey, Free Tennis, Planets, HPodder, LEdit, Hevea,
Polygen, i haven't checked what they are, but i think you'd agree they
basically fit into my describtion about FFTW, Unison, Darcs above.
Namely, some hobby programers happened to create a software that does
X well above others, thus other hobby programers who happens to need
it, use them.

(the above is quickly written, i'm sure there are many flaws to pick
as i phrased it, but i think you get the idea)

In your report, you made a sort of conclusion as this:

«This led us to revisit the subject of Haskell's popularity and track
record. We had reviewed Haskell last year in order to ascertain its
commercial viability when we were looking to diversify into other
functional languages. Our preliminary results suggested that Haskell
was one of the most suitable functional languages but this recent news
has brought that into question.»

That remark is slightly off. You phrased “Haskell's popularity and
track record”, but note that your stat is just a measure of some pop
tools among linux.
It is a exageration to say that it's some sort of “track record” of
haskell like a damnatation. Haskell for example, has strong academic
background. So, a fair “track record” would also measure its academic
use.
You also used the word “popularity”. Again, popularity is a fuzzy
word, but in general it also connate to mindshare. Between Haskell and
OCaml, i doubt more programer heard or knows about OCaml than Haskell,
and as far as mindshare goes, both are dwarfed by Lisp.

Then, you mentioned “commercial viability”. Again, what tools happened
to be cooked up by idle tech geekers in particular lang does not have
much to do with “commercial viability”.

So, although i do find your report meaningful and has some force in
indicating how OCaml is more used in terms of number of solid tools
among idle programers, but i don't agree with your seemingly overboard
conclusion that OCaml is actually some order of magnitude more used or
popular than Haskell for serious projects.

This is a pure guess: i think any validity of OCaml's popularity in
open source industrial use than Haskell is probably because OCaml has
more industrial background than Haskell, given the lang's histories.

------------------

On a tangent, many here accuse you being a troll. As i mentioned, i do
find your posts tends to be divisive and selling your website, but
considered on the whole of newsgroup's posts in particular by many
regulars, i think your posting behavior overall are in any sense
particularly bad.

Recently, i answered to a post used your name and your photo in
group.goople.com's profile. When i answered that post, i thought it
was from you. Thanks for letting me know otherwise.

(See:

Fake Jon Harrop post
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/43f971ff443e2ce5

Fake Jon Harrop profile
http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=Cv3pMh0AAACHpIZ29S1AglWPUrDEZmMqdL...
)

I think many tech geekers on newsgroups are just ignorant fuckfaces.
The guy who fake'd your identity, to the degree of using your photo in
his fake profile, perhaps thinks he's being humorous.

Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄

On Aug 27, 9:23 am, Jon Harrop ffconsultancy.com> wrote: