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Comment by tikhonj | Hacker News Reader

Except in the end, the author switches to OCaml[1]. So Python might be good enough, but he certainly found OCaml better.

And since when are we willing to settle for good enough?

[1]: http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2013/09/28/ocaml-objects/

(In fact, the author writes that he's basically willing to move to OCaml in the conclusion of this post.)

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"Good enough" the way I'm using it is nothing to be ashamed of. It is very difficult to find computing systems that are "good enough."

Here are some of the motivating factors identified by the author at the outset of the search for a better language:

- Canonical’s Colin Watson is worried about Python’s performance on mobile phones.

- Marco Jez and Dave Abrahams proposed a C++ version.

- Bastian Eicher would like a .NET version (though IronPython might work here).

It doesn't seem like OCaml effectively addresses the above very well. On the other hand, here are some items the author liked about Python which may now be lost:

- Widely known and easy to learn.

- A large standard library.

- You only need to ship source code (interpreted).

- Can run inside a Java or .NET VM (using Jython/IronPython).

- All current 0install contributors know it.

- The current code is all Python and is well-tested.

Of course the last item is the most alarming: see http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html (2000), Brooks' Mythical Man Month (1975) for the Second System Effect, etc.

Although F# isn't OCaml it is fairly similar, and compatible if you skip certain features of each: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/179492/f-changes-to-ocaml

> since when are we willing to settle for good enough?

Ever since we decided to get shit done, ship, finish our weekend project, etc. Ever since we first read "premature optimization is the root of all evil" and understood it as wide, abstract truism.

I seriously doubt OCaml's benefits over Python are so great that they overweigh not being able to hire someone proficient in it.

In practice, people have found that hiring good programmers is actually easier with certain more obscure languages. Paul Graham, amusingly enough, called this the "Python paradox" because, back in 2004, Python was one of the obscure choices! Oh how things change.

This certainly holds for OCaml as well. The main OCaml company I'm familiar with is Jane Street, and they certainly have no issues finding OCaml programmers. More importantly, many of their programmers come in with no OCaml experience or even no functional programming experience, and yet they have no trouble getting up to speed. In fact, these days they even teach their traders--often complete non-programmers--OCaml. And it works. I don't think I'd ever want to hire somebody incapable of learning a language like OCaml in a reasonable time frame.

So yeah, this is not an issue in the least. If anything, it seems to work out more favorably for the companies using OCaml, Haskel and the like!

I'm pretty sure that at Jane Street you get to solve engaging problems and get paid 250K+. OCaml or not, they're not going to have problems with hiring.

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