anuragsoni

I've used OCaml at day-jobs for the past couple of years. It has an excellent concurrency story, and I've used OCaml for lots of "boring" work (web services, database drivers, data processing, etc).

OCaml has a pretty decent language server [1]. You can pair it with the excellent OCaml vscode plugin [2], or any other LSP plugin for the editor of your choice.

[1] https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml-lsp/

[2] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ocamllab...

Dropbox works on zfs, xfs and btrfs just fine.

Source: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/syste...

If you are on macOS/iOS the built in apps for email/contacts/calendar/notes are really nice. Your data stays on your device, and no third party servers will be involved.

FWIW, I've used Fedora's KDE spin [1] and its very polished. That said, if I was still using linux on the desktop these days I'd go with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed[2]. With KDE my experience was that they made big improvements with every release, and tumbleweed was a nice way to get a stable-ish rolling release distribution that gets all the nice KDE updates without me having to wait another 6-8 months.

[1] https://spins.fedoraproject.org/en/kde/

[2] https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Tumbleweed

Different distributions pick different defaults for `Monospace`. If you are using KDE on ubuntu, `Monospace` might be pointing to `Ubuntu Mono`. On other linux distros if they are sticking to KDE defaults, then Monospace will point to Hack [1]

[1] https://sourcefoundry.org/hack/

Knowing intel and PC manufacturers you most likely won't find this CPU in a laptop without a dedicated GPU. I gave up the last time I was looking for a new laptop (I ended up with a MacBook Air), but it was surprisingly hard to find a laptop that had a beefy CPU but no discrete GPU. Lenovo had a couple of think pads that had some offerings but they would make you jump to the intel CPU with vPRO and that would come with a huge price increase.

Yes! https://v3.ocaml.org/users has a list some of industrial users. The list might not be as large as say for languages like Rust, but its more than just Janestreet :)

Personally, I've also been lucky enough to have worked for two different employers (not in the finance or compiler space) over the past 2 years where I've mostly used OCaml for writing things that many people might consider "boring", namely lots of web services, database drivers, data processing, etc.

Digitalocean offers TOTP for 2fa, with backup codes! No email needed. If memory serves well they only offer a TOTP and SMS based 2fa so i'm not sure why an email would be sent for this.

Edit: Their docs mention the 2fa modes that are supported: https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/accounts/security/2fa...

You can use X11 session with integrated graphics as well.

Dell sells XPS 13s with Linux preinstalled. The newer XPS has a 16:10 display, and they have hidpi OLED panels as an option.

Snap can install non-desktop applications just fine. I've only ever seen Flatpak for desktop apps, but I use snap for installing things like docker, lxd etc.

If the older version is available in the snap repository it is is possible to install it. For example:

snap info go shows:

  name:      go
  summary:   Go programming language compiler, linker, stdlib
  publisher: Michael Hudson-Doyle (mwhudson)
  store-url: https://snapcraft.io/go
  contact:   michael.hudson@ubuntu.com
  license:   BSD-3-Clause
  description: |
  This snap provides an assembler, compiler, linker, and compiled libraries
  for the Go programming language.
  snap-id: Md1HBASHzP4i0bniScAjXGnOII9cEK6e
  channels:
    latest/stable:    1.16.7           2021-09-08 (8298) 94MB classic
    latest/candidate: ↑                                       
    latest/beta:      ↑                                       
    latest/edge:      devel-8d2a9c32a2 2021-09-17 (8356) 99MB classic
    1.17/stable:      1.17             2021-08-17 (8172) 99MB classic
    1.17/candidate:   ↑                                       
    1.17/beta:        ↑                                       
    1.17/edge:        ↑                                       
    1.16/stable:      1.16.7           2021-09-08 (8298) 94MB classic
    1.16/candidate:   ↑                                       
    1.16/beta:        ↑                                       
    1.16/edge:        ↑                                       
    1.15/stable:      1.15.15          2021-09-08 (8304) 95MB classic

...

To install an older version you can run

  snap install go --channel=1.15/stable --classic

Firefox is already the default browser on Ubuntu. This change is about the packaging of the browser used by the OS maintainers. I don't think this change will impact any use adoption metrics.

Not all functional languages are made alike. OCaml compile times can rival Go's.

> We have prototyped offloading CPU intensive computations in Lwt programs using Multicore OCaml

This is very interesting! I'm wondering if you are aware of any discussions with the async maintainers about what their plans are with the multicore runtime?

> There's nothing I really miss about a proper tiling window manager (though I'm sure hardcore users would disagree)

Agreed. I mostly just needed the keyboard driven window snapping I was used to on Gnome and rectangle has filled than need 100%.

This will obviously not be comparable to a tiling window manager, but I've been pretty happy with Rectangle [1] on my mac. The keyboard mappings are pretty easy to configure and i've found it to work well even in multi monitor setups.

[1] https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle

I believe the pantheon[1] DE has dynamic workspaces (virtual desktops) as well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_OS

The story isn't as dire as it sounds like. Yes there are multiple stdlib alternatives, but I wouldn't classify any of them as a "wrong" choice. They interoperate pretty well, and using one stdlib alternative will not block you from consuming libraries where the maintainer chooses another stdlib alternative.

I tend to look at this situation as there are multiple really high quality options to pick from. Base [1], and core [2] and containers [3] are the three options I typically recommend people to look into (if they are interested in options outside of the stdlib), and all three are really high quality. Your decision could end up being as easy as deciding which platforms are important for you, if you don't care about windows and need to work with unix apis then core or containers are excellent options. If you do care about windows, then starting with Base/Containers is an excellent choice.

[1] https://opensource.janestreet.com/base/

[2] https://opensource.janestreet.com/core/

[3] https://c-cube.github.io/ocaml-containers/

Some additional notes:

* Core can be seen as an extension to base as it has a very similar API (It re-exports many modules from base), and it adds some unix related utilities and additional data structures.

* The built in Stdlib in OCaml has also been improving and if you are able to use a recent compiler version you might not feel the need for an stdlib alternative.

* Containers is an excellent "default" option as it tries to provide a similar API as the stdlib and works on all major platforms supported by OCaml.

> was my understanding wrong?

I believe so. There hasn't been any ocaml release where you can opt in to removing the global runtime lock.

The built in batteries are indeed nice and I did like that aspect of the remote.

> and I can use the touchpad without finding the specific button in the dark.

Interesting! This goes to show how the same design feels so different to different users :)

I think I could've gotten used to the touchpad if I spent a lot more time with with the apple-tv/remote, but at the time it felt like a big regression. Compared to the roku remote, i'd lose a mute button, a headphone jack for private listening, and ended up with a touch heavy interface that was more frustrating than useful considering me and wife would pick it up the wrong way a lot. At the end of the day I decided to stick with a Roku and have something that doesn't frustrate my wife, instead of trying to get used to the remote just to have the apple tv interface :)

> Not a huge fan of the Apple TV remote either (But I also don't hate it). The good news is that the Apple TV plays nice with stock TV remotes + game console controllers — I use my 8bitdo Sn30 Pro, but PS/Xbox controllers should work fine too.

Thanks, this is nice to know! I'll keep this in mind for whenever I'm ready to replace my Roku.

I like the apple tv interface, but I really disliked the remote that ships with it. The touchpad like interface feels really awkward, i would lift it up the wrong way pretty much every time. I remember reading about an apple certified 3rd party remote that was more like a traditional tv remote but that was only sold in the european market for some reason. If they ever decide to switch back to a proper remote i'll take a look at apple tv again. I'll keep running a roku til that happens.

I didn't mention this in my comment, but i use wayland on linux and i've found the touchpad experience to be nicer there compared to X11, even though both X11 and wayland sessions for Gnome use libinput. I don't know much about libinput to know why I feel a difference in my touchpad experience between X11 and wayland.

> That's my personal requirement. On a personal laptop I always use the trackpad so I want it to be the best.

100%. On my personal devices I don't want to compromise on trackpad or keyboards (I like that apple went back on the butterfly keyboards).

The rest of my comment is just my personal experience so take it with a grain of salt. I've found the trackpad experience on the XPS and Thinkpad X1 laptops to be excellent under linux. The libinput [1] drivers seem to work really well and the gesture support seems nice too. What I miss from MacBook's touchpad is force-touch. Not having to worry about which part of the touchpad i'm pressing was really nice when I used a macbook.

I'm contemplating purchasing a m1 macbook air as my next laptop, but I'm also not sure i'd be willing to give up on being able to run linux natively on a laptop I buy with my own money.

[1] https://github.com/wayland-project/libinput

Starting with macOS Catalina zsh is the default [1] shell.

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208050

I don't think there are "more sides" to this story. Harassing someone because one doesn't like an update to a piece of software is not okay.

For carplay and android auto, you'd plug your phone in via a lightening or a usb-c cable. I think there is wireless carplay and android auto too these days, but I'm not sure if that's available on many vehicles at the moment.

Which DE do you use with Ubuntu? If Gnome then the wayland support is already pretty decent with 20.04 and 20.10. (Gnome versions 3.36 and 3.38). The wayland situation on KDE Plasma is also improving with each new release and some other distributions (Fedora) are planning on switching their plasma session to wayland by default as well.