[Haskell-cafe] Why are OCaml and Haskell being used at these companies?

[Jon Harrop]

On Monday 12 November 2007 20:00, Galchin Vasili wrote:
> I am looking for (objective.. i.e. not juts FPL cheerleading) opinions as
> to why Wall Street ( http://www.janestcapital.com/) and banking  are now
> using OCaml and Haskell.

They have been using OCaml and Haskell for many years now. They were among the 
first industrial adopters of modern statically-typed functional programming 
languages along with companies like Intel and Microsoft who use them to write 
verification software.

> I really want to understand what industrial 
> markets are adopting FPLs and why in order to help push FPLs penetration
> into industry. Another company is http://www.galois.com
> Kind regards, Vasya

For the old examples that you gave, reliability was a major concern.

Functional programming languages are now much more widely used in industry, 
primarily because they offer substantial productivity improvements (roughly 
10x) over C++ and Java and, consequently, are much more cost effective.

Penetration is highest in parts of industry where small groups of talented 
programmers get together, most notably startups. Look at XenSource, Wolfram 
Research, The MathWorks, Wink, Merjis, Red Hat, Linspire and Skydeck for 
example.

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?e