> But for whatever reason it never became that mainstream

Syntax. Syntax is the reason. It's too foreign to be picked up quickly by the mass of developers that already know a C style language. I would also argue that it's not only foreign, it's too clunky.

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mpalmer 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The syntax is ridiculously simple, and I can't in good conscience allow OCaml to be called clunky in a thread about a language that solved error handling with record-like interfaces and multiple return types.

	▲	daxfohl 35 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah I half think Haskell is a big reason it's not more popular. If Haskell didn't exist, maybe OCaml would be better recognized as a good all-purpose language that makes safe practices the default, rather than just a gateway drug for Haskell.

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zozbot234 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

ReasonML easily fixes that particular issue.