I just read this great (short and sweet) paper by Yaron Minsky and Stephen Weeks on Ocaml, which describes their view on why Ocaml gives Jane Street a significant advantage over competitors.
However, the authors point out some key weaknesses of Ocaml: for example, it lacks a concurrent GC, its optimiser isn’t very good, etc.
This paper, though, was written in 2008. I wanted to ask Ocaml engineers here on HN for a 2024 update on the state of Ocaml. Do these negative aspects of the language still exist? And if so, how do you get around them?
I’ve noticed a lot of HFT funds, market makers, etc. all migrating to Rust.. which obviously doesn’t have the above issues (who needs a concurrent GC when you don’t even have a GC).. but Jane is sticking with Ocaml afaik. I wanted to learn more about that decision.
Moving an internal ML project from "a quick demo on localhost", to "deployed in production", is hard. We think latency is one of the biggest problems. We built OneContext to solve that problem. We launched today. Would love your feedback + feature requests!
Just a heads up for non-US founders incorporating companies via Stripe Atlas: the information given in the link about how non-US founders should fill out the W-7 form in order to get an ITIN is incorrect, and will result in your ITIN applications being rejected.
I incorporated a company using Stripe Atlas in May. I filed my 83(b) election, and at the same time, applied for an ITIN, as I am a non-US founder. I filled out the W-7 form exactly as specified in the instructions on the website https://stripe.com/docs/atlas/83b-elections-non-us-founders#... . I.e. in the “Reason you’re submitting Form W-7”, I selected Other, then entered “Making a protective IRC Section 83(b) election”.
I found out today that my ITIN application was rejected, and the reason was that I gave an incorrect reason in "Reason you’re submitting Form W-7".
I don't know (but would really like to know) what this means for the validity of my 83(b) election. I'm also pretty worried as to what that means for the validity of my 83(b) election.
I am also not alone in this, I personally know 4 other founders who have had their ITIN applications rejected recently.
I'm currently in SF so I've been trying to contact the IRS but of course they hardly ever answer the phone, and even if they do, they keep placing me back on hold, and then hanging up.
If anyone who works at Stripe Atlas sees this, please could you (a) change your instructions on your website, so non-US founders don't keep getting rejected based on your instructions. (b) could you let me know what this means for my 83(b) election? (c) could you let me know what the best thing to do now is? I'm not too keen on applying again and waiting another 3 months to hear that the application is rejected again, and I'd also love to know what the correct instructions are.
Sorry about that. We're also seeing a small handful of cases like this—it seems like there is some inconsistency in how IRS agents are handling. We're working on updating this guidance. (Ross—we're replying to our email thread now. And for any other Atlas founders who have questions about this in the meantime, you can reach us at atlas@stripe.com.)
Thanks a lot Edwin, appreciate it. Maybe there's been a recent change, as there's been a 100% rejection-of-ITIN-application rate in my accelerator cohort. In any case, if you could please let me know if this invalidates my 83(b), that would be really useful to know. Cheers
“French law prohibits free book deliveries but Amazon has circumvented this by charging a single centime (cent). Local book stores typically charge about 5-7 euros ($5.82-8.15) for shipping a book.”
Interesting how Amazon charge a “centime”, which hasn’t been legal tender in France since 2002…
