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Control panel with screens, buttons, papers, pens.

Wed, 31 Jan 2024

Are Your Programs Doing What You Think They're Doing? Introducing Monitoring Tools for Multicore OCaml

As programs grow in size and complexity, they become more challenging to optimise. When the cause of a particular performance issue can theoretically be attributed to multiple sources, developers need concrete data to drive their decision making and avoid time-consuming guesswork. As you can imagine…

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Curved pink and orange lines on black background.

Wed, 24 Jan 2024

#mirageos #ocaml

MirageOS: Designing a More Resilient Networking Stack With µTCP

There is no room for complacency in software development! In the OCaml ecosystem, improvements are continuously introduced to optimise existing workflows, introduce new features, and boost performance. MirageOS is a toolchain for creating unikernels (very small images that embed both an application …

Virgile Robles

Principal Software Engineer

Miniature figures running on circuit board chips.

Wed, 17 Jan 2024

#multicore #ocaml

What are Data Races? And do They Threaten Your Business?

Imagine you have a brand-new coffee machine. One morning, you traipse excitedly down the stairs only to discover that, alas, your appliance has turned into a potato. The next day, it turns back into a coffee machine. And so it continues: on some days, it dispenses you perfect, frothy coffee; on othe…

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Shelves with stacked blue, green, yellow folders.

Wed, 10 Jan 2024

#devtools #ocaml

Meet odoc, OCaml's Documentation Generator

Effective documentation is a cornerstone of software development. It helps developers understand how to use a language, its libraries, and its tooling, which leads to more robust and maintainable code. When it comes to OCaml, odoc is the wizard behind the scenes, ensuring developers not only underst…

Christine Rose

Technical Writer

Black silhouette on bright orange circle background.

Fri, 29 Dec 2023

#mirageos #ocaml #space

Announcing the ORCHIDE Project: Powering Satellite Innovation

It has been a few months since we announced our new product for both older and newer models of satellites: SpaceOS. Since then, there have been exciting updates to the use of SpaceOS for innovative satellite applications. Tarides is thrilled to announce our partnership with several esteemed organisa…

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

A camel standing and a camel calf sitting on sand.

Wed, 20 Dec 2023

#community #functional-programming #ocaml

OCaml Survey: Developers' Perception, Interest, and Perceived Barriers

Tarides is conducting a survey targeting non-OCaml programmers to learn their thoughts about this functional programming language and uncover any misconceptions surrounding it. Please take a few mintues to fill it out if you haven't yet done so. This post shows our preliminary findings based on a re…

Christine Rose

Technical Writer

Metallic chip with legs and geometric brain shape.

Thu, 14 Dec 2023

#cybersecurity #functional-programming #memory-safety

OCaml: Memory Safety and Beyond

Your choice of programming language matters. A recent press release from the US National Security Agency (NSA), in tandem with the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) alongside international cybersecurity agencies, urges the adoption of memory-safe programming languages for en…

Thomas Gazagnaire

CEO

Blue lockers, text "EDUCATION CHANGES THE WORLD."

Tue, 05 Dec 2023

#community #team

International Disability Day 2023: Why It Matters

When I was in my early 20s, I developed a chronic illness that (amongst other things) has affected my mobility. Becoming disabled is an eye-opening experience, as it makes you acutely aware of two things: First, there are many ways in which society genuinely tries to help people with disabilities, a…

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Two dogs on a Zoom call; left with yellow, right red.

Tue, 21 Nov 2023

#compiler #ocaml #tutorial

How to Install OCaml 5: A Video Tutorial

Have you had difficulty installing OCaml for your projects? We have created a video tutorial showing you how to use Opam to install OCaml on Linux and macOS. All you need to complete the tutorial is a computer running either Linux or macOS, and an internet connection. By the end of the tutorial you …

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Thu, 09 Nov 2023

#events #ocaml

OCaml Hacking Day in Chennai!

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a programmer in possession of a free Saturday afternoon must be in want of a good old OCaml hacking session. To address this pressing need, we recently hosted another OCaml Hacking Day event – this time at our Tarides India office in Chennai. We had a t…

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Two glass prisms with rainbow light dispersion.

Wed, 01 Nov 2023

#ocaml #wasm

WebAssembly Support for OCaml: Introducing Wasm_of_Ocaml

OCaml is constantly evolving. Developers collaborate to bring support for new features, improve workflows, and resolve pain points. To this end, the OCaml-Wasm GitHub organisation was recently established. Its goal is to bring WebAssembly support to OCaml. WebAssembly, more commonly known as Wasm, i…

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Modern library, staircases, bookshelves, people, seating.

Wed, 25 Oct 2023

#irmin #tutorial

Tutorial: Building a Browser Extension With Irmin

Irmin is a collection of OCaml libraries that makes it easy to build applications with Git-like data stores. We recently released irmin-client and irmin-server as official Irmin packages. These packages open up a new way to use Irmin by implementing a custom protocol that lets you write a client app…

Irmin Team

Horses racing with jockeys in colorful attire.

Wed, 18 Oct 2023

#multicore #ocaml

Off to the Races: Using ThreadSanitizer in OCaml

OCaml Multicore opened up a new world of performance for developers, something that Nomadic Labs has tested with great results. Rather than relying on one core to do everything, the program can take advantage of multiple cores simultaneously for a significant performance boost. With new programming …

Fabrice Buoro

Senior Software Engineer

Olivier Nicole

Senior Software Engineer

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Colorful speech bubbles with various emoji faces.

Tue, 10 Oct 2023

#events #team

Prioritising Mental Health at Tarides

In a world that never stops, it's easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle of daily life, often overlooking the importance of maintaining our mental well-being, one of the most vital aspects of our existence. Especially on World Mental Health Day, observed every October 10th, it's crucial to reflec…

Christine Rose

Technical Writer

Wed, 04 Oct 2023

#devtools #ocaml

Porting OBuilder to FreeBSD

OBuilder is a tool for performing arbitrary, reproduceable builds of OCaml-related software within a sandboxed environment. It is used by the CI team at Tarides to provide OCaml-based Continuous Integration (CI) for projects like opam-repo-ci, ocaml-ci, and multicoretest-ci. Originally written for L…

Miod Vallat

Principal Software Engineer

Tim McGilchrist

Principal Software Engineer

Blue and orange pencils on blue and orange paper.

Wed, 27 Sep 2023

#multicore #ocaml #tutorial

Tutorial: How to Port Lwt Applications to Eio

Thomas Leonard and Jonathan Ludlam hosted a tutorial on porting Lwt applications to OCaml 5 and Eio at arguably the world's largest functional programming conference: ICFP. The tutorial is a great introduction to Eio, with a clear step-by-step approach that is accessible to developers of different e…

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Blurry speaker, audience with hands raised, indoors.

Wed, 20 Sep 2023

#mirageos #ocaml #space

A Year of SpaceOS: Showing the World the Benefits of OCaml

I have had the pleasure of attending some great conferences over the past year, where I have presented some of the latest and most exciting OCaml use cases developed at Tarides. With our new SpaceOS solution, Tarides can provide significant quality-of-life upgrades for industries that rely on satell…

Shakthi Kannan

Senior Software Engineer

Fri, 15 Sep 2023

#interview #ocaml

Our Experience at Tarides: Projects From Our Internships in 2023

Internships at Tarides We regularly have the pleasure of hosting internships where we work with engineers from all over the world on a diverse range of projects. By collaborating with people who are relatively new to the OCaml ecosystem, we get to benefit from their perspective. Seeing things with f…

Dipesh Kafle

Intern Software Engineer

Shreyas Krishnakumar

Intern Software Engineer

Adithya Chandraserry

City skyline with tower, buildings, mountain backdrop.

Fri, 08 Sep 2023

#events #functional-programming #ocaml

The State of the Art in Functional Programming: Tarides at ICFP 2023

ICFP 2023 The 28th ACM Sigplan International Conference on Functional Programming is taking place in Seattle as I’m typing. This is the largest international research conference on functional programming, and this year’s event features fascinating keynotes (including one from OCaml’s very own …

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Glasses on keyboard, computer screen with code.

Thu, 17 Aug 2023

#cybersecurity #memory-safety #ocaml

Your Programming Language and its Impact on the Cybersecurity of Your Application

Did you know that the programming language you use can have a huge impact on the cybersecurity of your applications? In a 2022 meeting of the Cybersecurity Advisory Committee, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Senior Technical Advisor Bob Lord commented that: “About two-thir…

Shakthi Kannan

Senior Software Engineer

Geometric brain with small metallic spheres.

Thu, 10 Aug 2023

#multicore #ocaml

Kcas: Building a Lock-Free STM for OCaml (2/2)

This is the follow-up post continuing the discussion of the development of Kcas. Part 1 discussed the development done on the library to improve performance and add a transaction mechanism that makes it easy to compose atomic operations without really adding more expressive power. In this part we'll…

Vesa Karvonen

Principal Software Engineer

Dark room, hanging lights, silhouetted people.

Mon, 07 Aug 2023

#multicore #ocaml

Kcas: Building a Lock-Free STM for OCaml (1/2)

In the past few months I've had the pleasure of working on the Kcas library. In this and a follow-up post, I will discuss the history and more recent development process of optimising Kcas and turning it into a proper Software Transactional Memory (STM) implementation for OCaml. While this is not me…

Vesa Karvonen

Principal Software Engineer

LEGO figure in blue outfit, red helmet, gray background.

Wed, 02 Aug 2023

#devtools #ocaml

OBuilder on macOS

The CI team at Tarides provides critical infrastucture to support the OCaml community. At the heart of that infrastructure is providing a cluster of machines for running jobs. This blog post details how we improved our support for macOS and moved closer to our goal of supporting all Tier1 OCaml plat…

Mark Elvers

System Administrator

Satellite over ocean and desert landscape.

Mon, 31 Jul 2023

#mirageos #ocaml #space

OCaml in Space - Welcome SpaceOS!

Our mission is to build sustainable and secure software infrastructure that will not only work for decades but also positively impact the world. This includes our work on essential open-source libraries and tooling in the OCaml space, but also extends to include cutting-edge innovation through Mirag…

Miklos Tomka

Head Consulting Services

Busy market square with people, stalls, buildings.

Thu, 27 Jul 2023

#events #mirageos

Reflections on the MirageOS Retreat in Morocco

Introduction Since we are a hybrid remote and distributed company, everyone at Tarides knows first-hand how important in-person retreats are for collaborating on software development. They give us a chance to focus more deeply on our work, collaborate closely, and learn from one another. We are part…

Antonin Décimo

Senior Software Engineer

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Fabrice Buoro

Senior Software Engineer

Christiano Haesbaert

Principal Software Engineer

Jules Aguillon

Senior Software Engineer

Paul-Elliot

Sonja Heinze

Senior Software Engineer

Laptop screen displaying financial graphs.

Wed, 19 Jul 2023

#devtools #ocaml

Sandmark: Boosting Multicore Projects with Performance Benchmarking

Introduction In the realm of software development, continuous improvement is paramount. When it comes to Multicore projects, the need for thorough benchmarking becomes even more critical. This is where Sandmark comes into play. Sandmark, developed for the OCaml programming language, has proven to be…

Shakthi Kannan

Senior Software Engineer

Blurred pink and blue light streaks on black background.

Wed, 12 Jul 2023

#devtools #ocaml

OCaml-CI Renovated

OCaml-CI started with the goal of making a better continuous build system for OCaml projects. When we began in 2019, the goals were clear: it should provide a zero-configuration experience for OCaml projects using opam and Dune, and it should use an incremental architecture to avoid expensive recomp…

Navin Keswani

Principal Software Engineer

Tim McGilchrist

Principal Software Engineer

People riding camels in desert dunes, clear sky.

Fri, 07 Jul 2023

#functional-programming #multicore #ocaml

Making OCaml 5 Succeed for Developers and Organisations

OCaml recently won the ACM SIGPLAN PL Software Award. The award recognises a software system that has had a significant impact on programming language implementation, research, and tools. It is especially notable that 4 out of the 14 named OCaml compiler developers are affiliated with Tarides: Anil,…

KC Sivaramakrishnan

CTO

Person in blue suit using a laptop, blue background.

Wed, 05 Jul 2023

#cybersecurity #memory-safety #mirageos #ocaml

Zero-Day Attacks: What Are They, and Can a Language Like OCaml Protect You?

Zero-day attacks have been getting increased media attention lately, but what are they? And how can we protect ourselves? Google’s Project Zero tracks zero-day vulnerabilities at major software vendors. In 2021, their tracker noted the detection and disclosure of 58 in-the-wild zero-day exploits, …

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Group on mountain peak, blue sky, white clouds.

Tue, 20 Jun 2023

#awards #ocaml

OCaml Receives the ACM SIGPLAN Programming Languages Software Award

OCaml has received one of the most prestigious awards in the field of programming languages, and we are very thrilled that four of the award winners are from Tarides. This represents a huge success for the language, the named maintainers, and everyone who has worked on improving OCaml. We want to th…

Thomas Gazagnaire

CEO

Blue cubes with white symbols, arranged in a grid.

Fri, 05 May 2023

#blockchain #irmin

Optimising Archive Node Storage for Tezos

For the past few years, Tarides has been responsible for the storage component of Tezos, from L1 and L2 shells up to the Tezos protocol. In 2022, our main focus was on improving storage performance and UX for running nodes and bakers. Our efforts resulted in significant improvements, including reduc…

Irmin Team

Large group posing; letters "MDCTN23"; banners.

Fri, 28 Apr 2023

#events #open-source

OCaml at MinidebConf TN 2023

MinidebConf TN 23 was organised by Debian Developers and Villupuram Linux Users Group (VGLUG) as a precursor to DebConf 23 in September at Kochi, India. I had an opportunity to attend and speak at MiniDebConf TN. I presented two sessions, one built on our experiences of introducing a Code of Conduct…

Sudha Parimala

Senior Software Engineer

Man in red jacket near presentation slide.

Wed, 22 Mar 2023

#compiler #events #ocaml

Compiler Hacking in Cambridge is Back!

What’s the best way to spend a Friday evening? We think most people would agree that hacking on OCaml is pretty much at the top of that list (although full disclosure, our sample size for this data could be larger). On Friday the 24th of February, Tarides’s UK office hosted an evening of compile…

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Crowd holding protest signs, one reads "#MARCH 4WOMEN".

Wed, 08 Mar 2023

#community #events

More Than a Day: How Does Tarides Promote Women in Tech?

The aim of International Women’s Day is to raise awareness of gender inequalities and call for the empowerment of women worldwide. The goal is to forge a gender equal world and advance women’s equality in all forms. Within the field of technology, the focus is on elevating and advancing gender p…

Gemma Gordon

COO

Winding road through a mountainous landscape, aerial view.

Thu, 02 Mar 2023

#multicore #ocaml #open-source

The Journey to OCaml Multicore: Bringing Big Ideas to Life

Continuing our blog series on Multicore OCaml, this blog provides an overview of the road to OCaml Multicore. If you want to know how you can use OCaml 5 in your own projects, please contact us for more information. We also recommend watching KC Sivaramakrishnan's ICFP 22' talk Retrofitting Concurre…

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Tents and campfire in a forest at night.

Thu, 12 Jan 2023

#events #functional-programming

Lambda Retreat Report

Today we're taking a little pause from our OCaml 5 series to talk about a programming retreat. I spent a week in the woods with fellow programmers at the Lambda Retreat. It was a wonderful way to explore the nature of computations, abrstractions, and paradigms. Although I mostly work in OCaml, it wa…

Sudha Parimala

Senior Software Engineer

Hands typing on a laptop keyboard, blurred cup.

Tue, 10 Jan 2023

#compiler #interview #ocaml

Engineer Spotlight: Sudha Parimala

For our third and final Engineer Spotlight, we interviewed Sudha Parimala, a Tarides engineer who works primarily on the Multicore Applications team. She talks about what lead her to become an OCaml programmer and why she's excited about OCaml 5, as our blog series on Multicore OCaml continues. Chr…

Christine Rose

Technical Writer

Sudha Parimala

Senior Software Engineer

Plants with small pink and white flowers in a field.

Thu, 05 Jan 2023

#interview #irmin #ocaml

Engineer Spotlight: Zach Shipko

Tarides engineer Zach Shipko answers a few questions about why he decided to learn OCaml and why he's particularly excited about the OCaml 5 release. In celebration of OCaml 5, we've interviewed several engineers about their personal experience with the language and what features they enjoy. It's a …

Christine Rose

Technical Writer

Zach Shipko

Senior Software Engineer

Person wearing headphones, using laptop in cafe.

Thu, 29 Dec 2022

#functional-programming #interview #ocaml

Engineer Spotlight: Jules Aguillon

In celebration of the OCaml 5 release, we decided to interview a few of our talented engineers about OCaml. While it isn't a well-known language outside of the functional programming community, we're striving to get the word out about the great benefits of OCaml and why it's worth your time to try i…

Jules Aguillon

Senior Software Engineer

Christine Rose

Technical Writer

Roller coaster, upside-down, "TURBO" sign, blue sky.

Tue, 27 Dec 2022

#eio #functional-programming #memory-safety #ocaml

Love Rust? Then OCaml's New Eio Library is for You

We’ve come to expect a lot from the programming languages we use. We want the memory safety of Java, the performance of C/C++, and the concurrency of Go. On top of this, we need robust cybersecurity tools to protect us from the many risks and vulnerabilities in the world, all in an intuitive and e…

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Two camels walking in a sandy desert landscape.

Thu, 22 Dec 2022

#compiler #multicore #ocaml

OCaml 5 Multicore Testing Tools

The new version of OCaml 5 is here! It brings the ability to program multicore applications and to maximise our usage of all the CPU cores without a global lock getting in the way of performance. What's most exciting to me though is that we have a whole new way of writing... bugs! And with so much p…

Arthur Wendling

Principal Software Engineer

Square metal framework with blue sky background.

Wed, 21 Dec 2022

#devtools #ocaml

Advanced Merlin Features: Destruct and Construct

Merlin is one of the most important tools for OCaml users, but a lot of its advanced feature often remain unknown. For OCaml newcomers who might not know, Merlin is the server software that provides intelligence to code editors when working on OCaml documents. It allows one to easily navigate the co…

Ulysse Gérard

Principal Software Engineer

Glowing cube network, circle with symbol, purple background.

Tue, 20 Dec 2022

#blockchain #interview #multicore

How Nomadic Labs Used Multicore Processing to Create a Faster Blockchain

The technology that makes blockchain possible is complex, cutting-edge, and fascinating. Balancing efficiency and security on a knife's edge, it finds perfect harmony between high transaction speeds and safe, predictable results. Blockchain technology is constantly evolving, pushing the boundaries o…

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

Camel adorned with colorful decorations. Desert backdrop.

Mon, 19 Dec 2022

#compiler #ocaml

OCaml 5 With Multicore Support Is Here!

It's here! It's finally here! On Friday, 16 December 2022, the OCaml community announced the official release of Multicore OCaml! From the beginning, Tarides has been deeply involved in OCaml's evolution, so we're very proud to present OCaml 5! Our work with the myriad of academics, industrial devel…

Christine Rose

Technical Writer

A ship with sails near ice; a camel on ice.

Wed, 14 Dec 2022

#devtools #mirageos

Hillingar: MirageOS Unikernels on NixOS

NixOS allows reproducible deployments of systems by managing configuration declaratively. MirageOS is a unikernel creation framework that creates targeted operating systems for high-level applications that can run on a hypervisor. By building MirageOS unikernels with Nix, we can enable reproducible …

Ryan Gibb

Software Engineer

Wed, 07 Dec 2022

#compiler #ocaml

OCaml 5 Release Candidate Now Available!

We're in the home stretch for the full OCaml 5 release. Multicore is almost here! Yesterday its Release Candidate (RC) was announced on the OCaml Discuss, which is the final step before the major release, expected before Christmas. To learn more about the exciting features coming with OCaml 5, you c…

Christine Rose

Technical Writer

Silhouettes of camels and riders on a blue background.

Tue, 29 Nov 2022

#compiler #ocaml

OCaml 5 Beta2 Release

Just about a month after the OCaml 5 Beta release, the OCaml 5 Beta2 version has been released, taking us one step closer to the full OCaml 5 with Multicore release later this year. The OCaml community's collaboration is coming to fruition! Although we're not quite ready for the RC1 (Release Candida…

Christine Rose

Technical Writer

Advent calendar squares with numbers and decor.

Thu, 24 Nov 2022

#events #ocaml

Solve the 2022 Advent of Code Puzzles with OCaml

Too many programmers only know OCaml through a functional programming language overview course at university. They erroneously believe OCaml is used primarily in academia rather than in the real world. Not only is OCaml already used in several prominent businesses, it can also be used for fun projec…

Christine Rose

Technical Writer

Silhouettes: camels, people; orange sky; sun setting.

Tue, 22 Nov 2022

#business #functional-programming #memory-safety #ocaml

Six Surprising Reasons the OCaml Programming Language is Good for Business

Functional programming languages have been around since the 1950's, when the first high-level languages were used to program early computers. Examples of functional programming languages include OCaml, Erlang, Clojure, Haskell, Scala, and Common Lisp. Choosing the right programming language is criti…

Isabella Leandersson

Communications Officer

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