The author shares their frustrating experiences working on their first non-trivial OCaml project, an audio synthesizer library. They express that while they enjoy programming in OCaml, they find its development tools counter-intuitive and difficult to use. The goal of the post is to manage expectations about OCaml’s tooling, highlighting common issues faced by OCaml programmers. They detail their challenges with linking OS-specific native libraries, Rust interoperability, package installation with Opam, and Dune configurations. The author walks readers through their problem-solving process, showcasing the complexities of configuring Dune and passing linker flags, ultimately highlighting the need for realistic expectations and perseverance when working with OCaml.
https://www.gridbugs.org/frustrating-interactions-with-the-ocaml-ecosystem-while-developing-a-synthesizer-library/