> Learn Programming with OCaml

Lately, I keep asking myself, do I need to learn this new thing, should I force myself to learn this thing, LLMs know it anyways and so on.

So (asking genuinely), should we learn these things?

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xiaoyu2006 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You can also learn for your own amusement, and solely for the fun of comprehension; a lot of mathematician were driven by this. It's a shame current social value places so much utilitariaism on learning.

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f1shy an hour ago | parent | next [-]

This. The question can be seen like “should I learn to solve sodoku, if a computer can do it better?”

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underlipton an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As always, it is good to be aware that many people are too anxious about more existential issues to comfortably an consistently expend effort on intellectually-taxing tasks that aren't perceived as directly related to their survival. If it's an issue with social values, it's less of one related to learning as it is to perpetuating artificial scarcity.

	▲	Barrin92 23 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		>to comfortably an consistently expend effort on intellectually-taxing tasks that aren't perceived as directly related to their survival. the average person spends 6(!) hours a day on their smartphone, the average TikTok user spends 100 minutes on the app alone. This isn't about artificial scarcity, it's about the average person looking like the Wall-E people
	▲	an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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_HMCB_ an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

This ^

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dadoum 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My experience with OCaml has transformed how I think about programming and complex system design. This may also be true if you learn any other functional programming language, but OCaml is easy and flexible which makes it good imo as a door towards the more formal part of comp sci. Even for steering an LLM I think this might help.

	▲	f1shy an hour ago \| parent [-]
		My experience with lisp was exactly that: it completely changed how I think about programming, but much more, how I think about systems and engineering. (I learned it through SICP)

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henryrobbins00 41 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Michael Clarkson teaches OCaml at Cornell. I highly recommend his free course materials [1]. He’s an excellent educator. Learning functional programming paradigms had a major influence on how I design programs. Clarkson also taught snippets from the Pragmatic Programmer, which was equally influential (as it has been for many many others) [2].

[1] https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs3110/2025sp/

[2] https://pragprog.com/titles/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-2...

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monsieurbanana an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You could have asked this question 10 years ago, long before llms. It's not like you'd realistically would get an ocaml job back then when there's so few of them, so why bother?

The answer is still the same as well, people learn ocaml either because they enjoy it, or because learning a functional language makes them a better programmer overall and teaches your brain to approach a problem in a different way.

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adalacelove 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Should you learn history if it is already written in a book? Should you live if others are already living?

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a2ff6eeb0 an hour ago | parent [-]

For most people, history is trivia.

	▲	doc_ick an hour ago \| parent [-]
		If you ignore history everything is perfect, or at least a controlled slight deviation.

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ahoka an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why learn an instrument when you can just press play?

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dismalaf an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Why does anyone have any hobbies?

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a2ff6eeb0 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Cultural inertia: until recently, you couldn't just press play and get even a wide selection of music: for most of history, if you wanted music, you had to make it or hire someone to do it for you.

More recently, you had to go to the store and buy it, which meant you didn't have much variety.

Today, learning an instrument is for social status, inheriting the shine of the past, where music was rare and costly. The reason to learn an instrument today is because the former situation was romanticized.

It'll probably take a generation before people ease into guilt-free enjoying infinite, fully generated music.

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jonahx an hour ago | parent | next [-]

These theories sound vaguely plausible.

I would rate them as about 5% true and 95% false, as explanation of the past and prediction of the future.

The satisfaction of learning to do something difficult isn't going away, and the social status associated with it won't either.

	▲	a2ff6eeb0 26 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, I guess. But today, something like 30% of people play music or sing. Even a couple of generations ago, it was much higher. It's not going to die out, but I think a lot of people are asking themselves if they want to bother.

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toolslive an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

your body needs exercise or you end up an obese couch potato. Your mind is similar: it needs exercise or you end up a dunce.

	▲	29 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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otabdeveloper4 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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nine_k an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Outsourcing all the thinking to machines may have consequences you might not like.

An oblique explanation: https://croissanthology.com/earring

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sgt an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Seeing that you already know programming, I'd say it'd be less risky for you. But the only reason you're able to pilot an LLM to do programming for you, is because you understand programming and architecture.

But what about the future generations skipping the step of learning the OCaml's, the C's, the Python's...? It's quite concerning.

Oh by the way, yes. Learn OCaml!

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andsoitis 37 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I would sharpen my software engineering skills rather than coding / programming skills.

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RobRivera 20 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

LLMs know it anyways?

Hhhmmmmm

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doc_ick an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I mean if you want to let llms do everything for you go ahead. Wall-e implications aside, it seems like a great self centric life.

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sublinear an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

What the hell else do you have to do?!