> aesthetically the double semicolons are an abomination and irk me far more.

I think they have been optional for like 20 years, except in the top-level interactive environment to force execution.

That being said, I still don't get why people are so much upset with the syntax. You'll integrate it after a week writing OCaml code.

Erlang faces a similar uphill battle when it comes to syntax - there are three different punctuation marks used as terminators depending on context, and you have to keep in your head the rules for all 3. As someone who has written quite a bit of Erlang, but infrequently, it's always a battle.

And I think a big part of the reason that Elixir has done so well (Elixir pretty much starting out as Erlang-but-with-Ruby-syntax)

I spent more than a week writing ocaml and still found the syntax pretty annoying. ReasonML would have been nice if the Ocaml community actually cared, but they are a bit insular.