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Why GADTs matter for performance (2015)

(blog.janestreet.com)
83 points hyperbrainer | 1 comments | 10 May 25 13:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.357s | source
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goldchainposse ◴[12 May 25 19:17 UTC] No.43966573[source]▶
I know Jane Street love OCaml, but you have to wonder how much it's cost them in velocity and maintenance. This is a quant firm blogging about a programming language they're the most famous user of.
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kryptiskt ◴[12 May 25 19:56 UTC] No.43966877[source]▶
Why do you assume it's a drag for them and not a competitive advantage? I don't know if it's such a terrible thing to use a slightly out of mainstream language, when the standard in the business is to accumulate tens of millions of lines of C++.
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goldchainposse ◴[12 May 25 22:10 UTC] No.43967922[source]▶
> Why do you assume it's a drag for them and not a competitive advantage?

Because despite them being very open about it, no one else does it, and every distinguished engineer who pushes a weird tech choice will justify and defend it.

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1. cdaringe ◴[13 May 25 07:02 UTC] No.43970287[source]▶
People that haven’t used ocaml think it’s weird. I picked it up casually in 2020. It might not be popular, but it’s certainly not weird. It’s actually quite fantastic. These days I rarely ever use it, but I wish I did!