thoughts on OCaml so far [1/3]
good stuff:
* this is a good functional language
* it's also a good "compromise" language - every Computer Bro who has whinged to me "X is why functional programming isn't good enough" would find those problems solved with this language^
* being able to easily switch between functional and imperative and OO inside the same program is great
* named function arguments is pretty cool, and makes it easier to read other people's code
thoughts on OCaml so far [2/3]
bad stuff:
* it's so ugly... not as ugly as C, but there's still too much punctuation marks
* the book I'm reading (real world ocaml) starts with a guided tour, which covers the basics of the entire language - if I wasn't used to functional programming, this would have put me off completely
* I want to use this language to do a whole bunch of stuff, but I'm scared people will say I can't because it's not as well known as other languages
@lizardsquid why are you considering other people's opinions at all???
@Efi because most of my computer science experience at university is getting told off for trying things new, or being scoffed at for suggesting that we shouldn't keep using a language from half a century ago
@lizardsquid renew your brain!! :* <3
the only personal measure of agreement with a language should come from tour experience using it!
@lizardsquid Can I just ask, why the sudden trend of using ^ instead of * to denote a footnote? This is the second time I've seen it and it throws me off.
@Felthry I couldn't use * because I was already using * for dot points
although I could have used · for dot points, now that I think about it
@lizardsquid oh, I see. There's a dedicated character for that; •. Actually, there's quite a few: •‣⁃⁌⁍∙◦☙❥❧⦾⦿
@Felthry @lizardsquid neeeeeeeerd
@Felthry @lizardsquid I can't even see those on mobile lmao
@Felthry ooo!
where'd you get these?
@lizardsquid Open up your OS's character map equivalent and search "bullet"
They're all very standard characters, most everything should--well, apparently everything except @Efi's phone--should support them.
@Felthry @lizardsquid you can also search unicode bullet and get the codepage for them
@lizardsquid @Felthry that means you don't have a font that supports the full unicode set
thoughts on OCaml so far [3/3] (a footnote
^ of course, these Computer Bros who complain about functional programming are also the kind of people who refuse to learn anything and think they're always correct, so this doesn't actually solve any of their problems