CakeML – A Verified Implementation of ML
I find it interesting that CakeML, like many other developments in this area, is based on SML (Standard ML) and not OCaml (Objective Caml). Moreover, whenever I read something about ML languages, it seems most people in the academic field talk about SML.<p>Yet, it seems that OCaml is more popular among programmers and real-world projects. Even though these programmers come from the academic field, given the niche existence that OCaml still is. For example, the astonishing MigrageOS project chose OCaml instead of SML.<p>So my question is:<p>How is that? Why is OCaml so much popular, despite having just one implementation and no real spec? Why is SML with its real spec and multiple implementations not as least equally popular?<p>EDIT: Here are two possible answers that I don&#x27;t think apply:<p>1. OCaml may be &quot;good enough&quot;, which, combined with network effects, make choosing OCaml over SML a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don&#x27;t think it is that simple, because OCaml users and projects come mostly from the academic field. They are deeply concerned with correctness of code. Which would mean they should all have favored SML over OCaml. In fact, sometimes correctness seems to be the sole motivation. For example, the author(s) of OCaml-TLS didn&#x27;t just want to create yet another TLS library in a hip language. They are concerned with the state of the OpenSSL and similar libraries, and wanted to create a 100% correct, bullet-proof, alternative.<p>2. Although one could attribute this to the &quot;O&quot; in Objective Caml, I don&#x27;t think it is that simple, because it seems the object-oriented extensions are almost unused, and wherever I saw them being used (e.g. LablGTK, an OCaml wrapper for the GTK UI library) I don&#x27;t see that much value, and that sticking to plain OCaml Modules and Functors would have led to a better interface.)