Explore articles by Isabella Leandersson, featuring deep insights into systems programming, distributed computing, and cutting-edge technology. Discover the author's unique perspective and technical expertise that contribute to innovation at Tarides.
OCaml 5.3: Features and Fixes!
OCaml 5.3 is released! This post gives you an overview of returning features, optimisations, and fixes as well as a taste for what's to come.
Communications Officer
Learn OCaml the Easy Way - Including the Hard Bits
Discover some of the best resources for learning OCaml, including tutorials, books, and events. Are you a larger group? Learn more about our OCaml courses too!
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Saturn 1.0: Data structures for OCaml Multicore
Announcing the 1.0 release of Saturn, a library of efficient, tested, concurrent data structures ready to use with OCaml 5.
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The New Conference on the Block: What is FUN OCaml?
All the details from the new FUN OCaml conference held in Berlin in 2024, which hosted multiple talks, workshops, and social activities.
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Making OCaml Mainstream: Support Our Open Source Work on GitHub
Tarides contributes to the OCaml community by performing maintenance, hosting community events, and introducing new features to the language. You can now support this work by sponsoring it on GitHub.
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Making Crypto Safer: Introducing the ARGOS Project
We are partnering up to create a custom platform for evaluating, tracing, and detecting suspicious blockchain transactions.
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Looking Back on our Experience at ICFP!
Some of Tarides' engineers share their memories and impressions from the biggest functional programming event of the year.
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Summer of Internships: Projects From the OCaml Compiler Team
We have had the pleasure of hosting several interns in the compiler team this past year. Their projects have tackled varied and challenging tasks touching on different aspects of compiler development, ranging from modularising the observability tool Olly to creating eBPF-based kernel-side performanc…
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Eio From a User's Perspective: An Interview With Simon Grondin
Are you curious about Eio but not sure what to expect? Eio is an effects-based direct-style concurrency library for OCaml 5. I recently spoke with Simon Grondin from Asemio about his personal experience using the I/O library Eio. He was kind enough to share the good and the bad and give me insight i…
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Feature Parity Series: Compaction is Back!
Compaction is a feature that rearranges OCaml values in memory to free up space, which can then be returned to the operating system. In the OCaml 5.2 release, the technique returns to the OCaml Garbage Collector for the first time since its removal in the 5.0 multicore update. This is part one of ou…
Getting Specific: Announcing the Gospel and Ortac Projects
Part of the benefit of open-source development is the opportunity to collaborate on projects across traditional organisational boundaries, such as academia and industry. Tarides is part of a larger effort to develop a behavioural specification language and associated tooling for OCaml. The project c…
Senior Software Engineer
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The Biggest Functional Programming Conference of the Year: What are we Bringing to ICFP?
Feeling fashionable? Milan is calling! ICFP 2024 will be held in the Italian fashion capital from 2-7 September, and there is something there for everyone to enjoy. The ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming is a yearly highlight with various keynotes, tutorials, and tracks t…
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How TSan Makes OCaml Better: Data Races Caught and Fixed
Parallel programming opens up brand-new possibilities. Using multiple cores means that users can benefit from powerful OCaml features (like formal proofs and high security) while enjoying greater performance, enabling them to improve their services or projects. However, introducing such a significan…
Senior Software Engineer
Senior Software Engineer
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Monoculture of Insecurity: How CrowdStrike's Outage Exposes the Risks of Unchecked Complexity in Cybersecurity
A seismic event in the IT world, everyone is talking about the CrowdStrike update that caused global chaos earlier this month. There are many great articles and blog posts dissecting the event and suggesting ways to avoid a repeat. Rather than join our voice to the chorus and explain how a small cha…
Head Consulting Services
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Deep Dive: Optimising Multicore OCaml for Windows
We love hosting internships. It is rewarding to potentially facilitate someone’s first foray into the OCaml ecosystem, helping them establish a hopefully life-long foothold in the world of open-source programming. It is also a great opportunity to get new perspectives on existing issues. Fresh eye…
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Introducing Olly: Providing Observability Tools for OCaml 5
It might be tempting to think that we can write code that works perfectly the first time around, but in reality optimisation and troubleshooting forms a big part of programming. However, there are more and less productive (and frustrating!) ways of problem solving. Having the right tools to guide yo…
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Keeping Up With the Compiler: How we Help Maintain the OCaml Language
Not all of our projects have a definite end: a grand culmination of effort and time where we pop champagne and set off fireworks (which is, of course, how we celebrate most of the time). Indeed, providing ongoing support for the OCaml ecosystem is one of our biggest priorities, and it means that we …
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Secure From the Ground Up: Introducing the FIDES Project Combining RISC-V and MirageOS
We entrust some of our most sensitive information to an invisible stream of information flowing back and forth across the globe. Cybersecurity concerns everyone, and Tarides is developing secure, lasting, and high-performing solutions for a diverse set of users. This post introduces you to cutting-e…
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Launching the First-Class Windows Project
We want to make learning and using OCaml easier for more people. Realising this goal involves expanding OCaml support to where the users are and making their experience smooth and hassle-free. It is generally accepted that the current state of OCaml on Windows is not comparable to other popular plat…
Senior Software Engineer
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The OCaml 5.2 Release: Features and Fixes!
There has been a new release of OCaml! The 5.2 release brings several new features, along with improvements, optimisations, and bug fixes. New features include compaction, ThreadSanitizer, and restored support for compiling to the POWER architeture on OCaml, plus other crucial changes that prepare t…
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We Host Our First OCaml Retreat in India!
Hacking retreats are great ways for programmers to connect, explore new ideas, and learn from each other. One of the most popular OCaml retreats is the much-loved Mirage retreat, organised annually in Morocco. But for us OCaml enthusiasts located elsewhere, the journey can be challenging (not to men…
Senior Software Engineer
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Multicore Testing Tools: DSCheck Pt 2
Welcome to part two! If you haven't already, check out part one, where we introduce DSCheck and share one of its uses in a naive counter implementation. This post will give you a behind-the-scenes look at how DSCheck works its magic, including the theory behind it and how to write a test for our nai…
Senior Software Engineer
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NetHSM: Bringing Open Source to the World of Hardware Security Modules
Nitrokey is one of the world’s foremost open-source hardware security companies. They develop IT security hardware for data encryption, decryption, and signing, including key and user authentication. After eight years of development, they recently released the first fully open-source Hardware Secu…
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Principal Software Engineer
Eio 1.0 Release: Introducing a new Effects-Based I/O Library for OCaml
The OCaml 5 update brought much-anticipated support for programming on multiple cores. It also introduced support for concurrency via effect handlers – one of the first mainstream languages to do so. This significant update has had profound performance and UX implications, propelling OCaml into ne…
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Principal Software Engineer
Advisor
Multicore Testing Tools: DSCheck Pt 1
Reaping the plentiful benefits of parallel programming requires the careful management of the intricacies that come with it. Tarides played a significant part in making OCaml Multicore a reality, and we have continued to work on supporting tools that make parallel programming in OCaml as seamless as…
Senior Software Engineer
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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 …
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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…
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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…
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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 …
Senior Software Engineer
Senior Software Engineer
Communications Officer
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…
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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 …
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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…
Senior Software Engineer
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Senior Software Engineer
Principal Software Engineer
Senior Software Engineer
Senior Software Engineer
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, …
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Real World OCaml Book Giveaway!
Real World OCaml is a fantastic book on OCaml and functional programming – a great resource for beginners and experienced users alike. At Tarides, we want to support new learners of OCaml as much as we can, making it easier for people to become part of the vibrant community surrounding the languag…
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Tarides Sponsors Girls Can Code
The tech industry has long struggled with a lack of diversity. This existing imbalance combined with social and educational problems such as early gender bias still tends to prevent lots of people, including women, from entering the field. Girls Can Code aims to help young women learn programming an…
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Tarides Goes on Holiday!
Relaxing in today’s world can be difficult. Taking the time you need to cool off, refocus, and explore something new requires a solid amount of time in which you can disconnect from daily habits and find a new beat. At Tarides we address this by providing the framework needed for our employees to …
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Tarides is on the Wavestone Radar!
Cybersecurity is a growing concern for individuals and companies alike. At Tarides, security is at the centre of every solution we provide, and this year we have been recognised for our efforts! We’ve been accepted to Cyber@StationF’s acceleration program and are now featured in the 2022 Cyberse…
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Thales Cyber@Station F Selection
The online world is becoming an increasingly bigger part of our everyday lives, bringing the issue of cybersecurity to the forefront of more and more minds. At Tarides we put security at the centre of everything we do, and we’re honoured to be part of Cyber@Station F in 2022. Tarides is thrilled t…
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Team Tarides Visits a 17th Century Chateau
Everyone at Tarides recently had the opportunity to meet up in person for the first time! Since the global pandemic left much of our distributed team unable to meet, we organised a working retreat that brought all our teams together to work, learn, and have fun. This was the first formal retreat weâ…
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Functional Conf 2022
This year, Tarides attended the 2022 Functional Conf in India. Tarides’s engineers Sudha Parimala and Shakthi Kannan gave presentations on the OCaml platform and Sandmark, a continuous benchmarking tool for Multicore OCaml. The Functional Conf is a three-day conference on everything functional pro…
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