Unix programming is more than historical UNIX (for ESR, make that hysterical UNIX). ESR completely forgets to talk about the ML class of languages and especially OCAML. But OCAML is French and must be too unamerican for ESR.

People are very productive using this language and write very effective type-safe programs. The ML class of languages fares very well in programming contests.

Perl6 will deal with (optional) types and I hope that it will get some good stuff from the other camel. Actively studying OCAML, I wonder how many Perl6 ideas originate from there or from some other common source. Example: the idea of a clean way to extend the grammar is evoked in this slide (the whole set is a must read for people familiar with C++ and Scheme).

yapc::eu will include a lightning talk about OCAML.

-- stefp
Come to YAPC::Europe 2003 in Paris, 23-25 July 2003.