[hajile]

If StandardML had even a fraction of the money behind go, there would simply be no contest.

Ocaml is billed as the pragmatic ML, but the syntax really sucks and nominally typed structs aren't nearly as good. They also have 3 competing standard libraries.

Haskell is too ivory tower. Most devs simply can't be bothered.

StandardML is that awesome middle. The language choices are pragmatic compared to haskell (mutable refs, side effects, and not lazy). The syntax is super simple and consistent (unlike ocaml). The concurrent ML extensions offer good multi-threading (still waiting on ocaml). The mlton compiler is very fast. There's only one standard library and it's decent. The big thing holding the language back is third-party libraries. If Google threw their millions at SML instead of go, SML really would be better in every way.

[ernst_klim]

>nominally typed structs aren't nearly as good

OCaml structs are structurally typed.

> They also have 3 competing standard libraries.

There is only one standard library, stdlib.

[rndmio]

You know what he meant, if you want functionality comparable to the Go stdlib you are going to have to choose between Core or Batteries, then for async do you choose Async or Lwt? And as said the build system (when you're used to Go) is poor. I like a lot of what OCaml offers, but there's a lot of friction.

[ernst_klim]

> if you want functionality comparable to the Go stdlib you are going to have to choose between Core or Batteries

He is talking about SML here.

Care to elaborate, what Go has to do with Core or Batteries? Both are mostly container libraries, and you don't need them since most of the useful staff is in stdlib.

Check revdeps in OCaml, nobody uses batteries, and nearly nobody safe JS uses Core.

XML parsers, Lwt, servers are in separate packages, which is the only and right thing to do.

>then for async do you choose Async or Lwt

Lwt, it's a non-question. Async is for JaneStreet only.

> And as said the build system (when you're used to Go) is poor.

Dune [1] is far superior to Go's build system. Extremely fast, composable, supporting packaging and os-dependent configurations, extremely easy to config. No abomination like "import github.com/package" or "//go:" in your code.

Go build system doesn't have even a fraction of nice features dune have. For example I could `dune utop ./path/to/my/libs` to build my libs and run a nice repl to test them.

Go doesn't even let you to configure your warnings precisely.

[1] https://dune.build/

[hajile]

> OCaml structs are structurally typed.

You can read about Ocaml's nominal record typing in the [ReasonML docs](https://reasonml.github.io/docs/en/record) (it's more clear there IMO).

SML gets this right in my opinion. If I create a record `{foo = "abc", bar = 123}`, I can pass that record on to ANY function that needs a record that looks like {foo:string, bar:int} fields because it looks at the structure rather than the type of the record constructor.

Another nice property of the SML approach is that you don't need named arguments. Instead, pass a tuple with names (aka a record). One set of syntax rules covers both cases. I also rather like the ability to access record fields with the hash syntax (eg, `#foo myrecord`) when I don't want to destructure.

[ernst_klim]

>You can read about Ocaml's nominal record typing in the [ReasonML docs](https://reasonml.github.io/docs/en/record) (it's more clear there IMO).

You are confusing records with structures, it seems. Structures exist in module language. Records are nominal in SML as well. Access functions for tuples and records are a dirty ugly hack build-in for convenience, they have nothing to do with structural typing, they are inferred in place.

OCaml has structural typed records, they are called objects.

   let obj = object method pi = 3.14; method name = "Pi" end
   val obj : < pi : float ; name : string >

is structurally typed record.

> I can pass that record on to ANY function

No, you can't.

    #foo { foo = 42 }

works, but

    fun f x = #foo x

doesn't. It's an ugly hack, typing is still nominal. A hack, just like SML's arithmetic op overload.

Compare it to OCaml, which have proper structural typing for objects and raw polymorphism

    let f x = x#foo
    f : < foo : 'a; .. > -> 'a

Edit: sorry, indeed typing is structural since you can write `{x:typ} -> typ`.

Anyways OCaml have structural typed records and raw polymorphism and subtyping support for them.

> Another nice property of the SML approach is that you don't need named arguments. Instead, pass a tuple with names (aka a record).

What's your point? You can use records as arguments in OCaml as well.