I really wanted to like OCaml, still do. I gave it a good shot a couple of years ago, wrote a few basic programs and loved it.
But it to me seemed packaged like many languages in the days of yore, when a language shipped simply as a compiler, and nothing more. The way of the world today to me seems to be a compiler, together with a complete standard library and consistent packaging system.
My experience with OCaml was thwarted repeatedly by a byzantine exploration process of packages depending on other packages, which required other packaging systems. Once I reached that point where it felt like I was spending more time figuring out the complex ecosystem, rather than writing code, I rapidly lost interest.
And perhaps such a point comes in exploring any new language. But it came much too early for me in OCaml. I had so much more I wanted to learn, but couldn't. I am hopeful for the new release. Thank you for your efforts, OCaml team.
A couple of years ago, opam was the recommended package manager and dune was the recommended build system–just as today. The opam package index was also searchable for libraries. The OCaml website may have been slightly less clear about these things than it is now, but I think a reasonable user would have been able to find them, especially if they went to the forum and asked. People would have gladly answered questions.
I don't think that's totally fair. The Up and Running page of the OCaml website (https://ocaml.org/learn/tutorials/up_and_running.html) was added during 2020. Before that it lacked a straighforward introduction on what you need and how to install it. Node, Go and Rust all come with the package manager, and Rust even comes with a way of managing the different Rust versions. The essential part are here, and everything works well, but for new users it lacks polishing. You can argue that it would take a lot of time for a community that is a bit short on manpower, and that's true. But in the end the experience isn't as good as with other ecosystems.
There's no mention of dune on the old page, which sounds like what they were looking for.
> Look, I agree with you that OCaml installation and tooling are not the easiest to get into. But it wasn't like what the GP was making it out to be.
I disagree with your interpretation of the initial post. Notice the "But it to me seemed" and "My experience with OCaml", and also "The way of the world today to me seems to be". These things are important. They inform us that that person is not exposing a truth, but sharing an experience, and personal preferences. They are also, I think, a way of saying "I don't know if the installation process was too hard, or if it was me that didn't understood something, but what I know is that in the end it didn't work out.".
So at this point, you have multiple options. You can empathize, you can work hard on trying to solve the issues on your end, assuming they are on your end, which might not be the case, you can ignore the post. What, I think, you shouldn't do is to deny this experience and imply that that person is "unreasonable".
Government is not on your side. Remember that, for all countries, for all times, for all peoples. Government protects itself first, at your expense, by helping those who can help it accomplish that said goal. If you can't help it to that end, you're nothing, literally. It truly couldn't care less about you, your liberties, or even your very life. Government can and does completely destroy people's lives, regularly, for having committed no moral offense of any kind, having caused no harm whatsoever to anyone anywhere in any way, but instead for having violated nothing more than a statute granting random behavioral power over you to some overfunded, distant, and uninterested regulatory agency.
This explanation might aid those who're confused about why a community strengthening, environmentally positive, socially worthwhile website like Streetlend would shut down in response to this huge collection of laws that was sold to us as actually helping us.
> a community strengthening, environmentally positive, socially worthwhile website like Streetlend
If Streetlend were even remotely as you described, they would have easily made enough money to defend itself against the government - all in glorious free market fashion. All hail supply side Jesus! Oh wait, it's tiny operation making a pittance in revenue. Whoopsie!
Thankfully, this is the 21st century and Western society has long ago decided that it'd rather have "the government" destroy individuals with a system of courts to appeal to rather than let anyone do whatever they wanted. Thanks Obama.
Many large and profitable enterprises struggled as marginally profitable businesses for an extended period of time before finding a formula that worked.
The ability to run a failing business is also valuable in and of itself. Look at the businesses run by the McDonalds brothers before they opened McDonald's restaurant for example, which helped them gain the experience necessary to eventually create a successful business.
>>Thankfully, this is the 21st century and Western society has long ago decided that it'd rather have "the government" destroy individuals with a system of courts to appeal to rather than let anyone do whatever they wanted.
Ah yes the 21st century, where a growing proportion of young adults live at home, have given up on starting a family, and have a shrinking pool of industries in which they can afford to start a business or career, as a result of an increasing number of well-intentioned regulations.
Regulations like GDPR are hopelessly misguided attempts to centrally plan greed and abuse out of society. The complex bureaucratic rules attempt to anticipate every permutation of commercial interaction, and predetermine the correct parameters of action for each permutation.
It's absurdly reductionist and unworkable, and only results in more rent-seeking and less efficiency.
Competition drives prices down? Bloated, protectionist government regulations drive prices up? Wow! Stop the presses!
This same story in umpteen other contexts has been written time and time and time again, throughout modern history.
Get government out of the way. Let people put themselves to work in ways they feel most capable, and watch innovation happen, cost effectively, and to the benefit of mankind! What's old is new again.
Speaking in the larger context, this stick you feel you've been given comes at a high price. Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time before the powers that be will fashion a stick with which to beat you, too.
Isn't it possible to be proficient or even prophetic at a thing while being not so good at another?
I agree those comparisons to China border on wacky while I feel he is right on target about the fundamental, critical, beating-heart importance of free speech in all things. Maybe he also has valuable thoughts to share on productivity. Or maybe not!
How then should an employee act under a strongly anti-semitic or anti-asian or homophobic boss? Should they just endure it because quitting or complaining is censorship? Is driving people out by bigotry acceptable but firing the bigots who drive employees away is not?
If bigotry is allowed in the workplace, why not nudity: isn't that free expression too?
Ok the linked article seems to be a short synopsis of a book, one which I did not read nor have intention to.
But dear Lord the article was so full of government fluff, obvious and trite blather of what has been tried and failed, over, and over, and over again.
It is nothing but why we need government to fix the very problems it created, and makes even worse with its choking regulations, legislation, and self-serving laws.
My very own grandfather broke into the roofing business around age 11, growing up in abject poverty. He didn't much care for sitting in a school house. He made a good living eventually, becoming one of the largest employers in town, a respected local businessman who would hire anyone willing to work, and give them a fair shot.
Today, though, his life would be completely unable to be lived, legally, anyway. Between the government's silly attempts at paperwork for immigration tracking, taxes, labor laws, minimum wage laws, the list goes on and on and on, it would be impossible. The barriers to entry for the poor but motivated ensure nothing more than the permanent existence of the poor.
The article is frankly disgusting in its puerile and obviously wrong insistence that what we need is more of the above.
It blows my mind that "low minimum wage" is listed as a reason why minorities don't earn more money. It is well known that increases in minimum wage result in higher unemployment. It is very basic supply/demand. In fact minimum wage laws were originally implemented in the south specifically to price minorities out of the market. [0]
It seems utterly nonsensical now to act as if they are some great boon to minorities and will help them rise out of their current collective predicament. The best thing for people with low skills is to allow them to enter the market to gain skills. Pricing them out of the market and legitimate employment pushes them to black markets as there is no legal way to participate in gainful employment. Which will thereby increase incarceration rates and contributes to the problem of fatherless homes, something we all know is a very undesirable outcome.
While you are certainly correct that the military has provided the genesis of various valuable technologies, it doesn't have to continue to be that way. We could choose to expend our limited resources on more meaningful, and socially responsible, outlets. This move by Google employees is to me a welcome tug against the hopelessly chaotic military machine, and a push back against continued military involvement in SV affairs. I'm happy to see individuals taking this position.
I think that's a great idea. And I support it. But something inside me says it's idealistic and not in touch with a baser human nature of something akin to a 'dog-eat-dog' mentality.
If I were starting out today fresh from high school, and were interested in technology as a possible career, I would consider certain certifications from the likes of Cisco, Juniper, Oracle, any of the various code schools, etc., strongly consider them, against protracted, ghastly expensive college degrees, which are rapidly losing value in the marketplace.
Ref https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2021/10/06/updates-on-the-twitch-s...