<story><title>Why OCaml? [video]</title><url>https://blogs.janestreet.com/why-ocaml/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nons3nse</author><text>I am learning Haskell but it is very s-l-o-o-o-w to get to a point where I feel I am actually able to write useful software (probably my fault in fairness!). I have looked over the fence at OCaml and it seems it hits a sweet spot between practicality and rigor.&lt;p&gt;Can anyone advise on whether learning OCaml is worth it when compared to Haskell, considering I am on my way with Haskell, if only slowly? The lack of tooling on Windows (I write cross platform desktop software) and the maturity of the web frameworks (compared to Haskell) has put be off learning OCaml in the past...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ZenoArrow</author><text>Learn F#. It&amp;#x27;s basically OCaml for .NET (there are some differences between them, but they&amp;#x27;re very similar). You get great tooling, a huge library of functions (F# supports all .NET libraries), a welcoming community, and the language itself is very well thought out.&lt;p&gt;If you decide you&amp;#x27;d like to learn OCaml at a later date, you&amp;#x27;ll find it easy if you&amp;#x27;ve already learnt F#.&lt;p&gt;With regards to web frameworks, you&amp;#x27;ve got some good options, ranging from heavyweight frameworks like WebSharper, to lightweight frameworks like Suave.&lt;p&gt;Much of F# is cross platform too. It&amp;#x27;s been open source for a long time, and runs fine on Mono.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;d like some extra information about F#, I&amp;#x27;d recommend the website &amp;#x27;F# for fun and profit&amp;#x27;:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fsharpforfunandprofit.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fsharpforfunandprofit.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Why OCaml? [video]</title><url>https://blogs.janestreet.com/why-ocaml/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nons3nse</author><text>I am learning Haskell but it is very s-l-o-o-o-w to get to a point where I feel I am actually able to write useful software (probably my fault in fairness!). I have looked over the fence at OCaml and it seems it hits a sweet spot between practicality and rigor.&lt;p&gt;Can anyone advise on whether learning OCaml is worth it when compared to Haskell, considering I am on my way with Haskell, if only slowly? The lack of tooling on Windows (I write cross platform desktop software) and the maturity of the web frameworks (compared to Haskell) has put be off learning OCaml in the past...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>a0</author><text>Learning Haskell is rewarding in long term, since it deepens your understanding of things.&lt;p&gt;I learnt both Haskell and OCaml at the same time since their core is essentially the same. But in real world scenarios the way you think about problems is different in both languages. Haskell tends to be more abstract and favor mathematical reasoning, while OCaml is pragmatic but still very expressive.&lt;p&gt;TL;DR: It depends on your needs, if you want to learn the language and start building something quickly, OCaml is definitely a better choice. You can always come back later to Haskell, and you&amp;#x27;ll be surprised to see how similar they are.</text></comment>