Ask HN: best languages to learn as a newcomer

Re:Ask HN: best languages to learn as a newcomer by mnemonicsloth on Tuesday May 26, 2009 @07:18PM (#627696)

...OCaml probably has enough credibility to get away with it.

What's the basis for your claim here?

Over the years, I'd estimate I've worked with around a hundred grad students, postdocs, and professors in Physics, Electrical/Computer Engineering, and Applied Math. I have literally never met one who used OCaml. I would be very surprised if more than a handful had so much as heard of it. That's because these people are about as interested in programming as the average programmer is interested in Schur-Newton-Krylov solvers.

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Re:Ask HN: best languages to learn as a newcomer by menloparkbum on Tuesday May 26, 2009 @07:29PM (#627709)

As far as I can tell, OCaml is used at some French research labs, a freshman programming course at Caltech, and Jane Street Capital.

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Re:Ask HN: best languages to learn as a newcomer by gaius on Wednesday May 27, 2009 @05:41AM (#628246)

Firstly, if Jane Street are able to use it, it must have been signed off by their auditors and regulators, so we can be pretty confident in its numerical correctness. Secondly, it holds the record for the fastest Fourier transform - again, it couldn't do that if it was fastest by getting it wrong...

I've also seen job ads for it from other banks including Credit Suisse.

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