OCaml at LexiFi
summary
Company codebase uses OCaml in production since 2000, about 900,000 lines, 1,500 modules, running OCaml 5 across Windows, Linux and the web. CI moves from 40 to 10 minutes using persistent Jenkins VMs and a binary cache. Tooling includes Dune, Merlin, gen_js_api, CSML for .NET bindings and flexdll; opam and PPX are mostly avoided. A maintained compiler fork adds type-reflection that synthesizes runtime types, enabling automated printing, XML schemas and derived native/web UIs — a productivity win used in production.
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chapters (17)
- 0:00Introduction and background
- 5:53Speaker's background and LexiFi
- 7:22LexiFi's role in OCaml development
- 10:14Internal tools and open-source contributions
- 11:21Codebase size and migration to OCaml 5
- 13:46Development environment and tooling
- 16:36Build systems and CI optimization
- 17:41Dune build system experience
- 19:27Library usage and conservative approach
- 22:17PPX usage and alternatives
- 25:50Advanced OCaml features in practice
- 28:01Debugging and printing values
- 28:43Numerical code and performance
- 31:11CSML and Windows UI bindings
- 33:00Runtime types and compiler fork
- 38:19Runtime reflection benefits
- 39:05Conclusion and Q&A
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