I discovered computer science in preparatory classes (a French thing that comes before engineering school, you can think of it as the first years of college) in France where it was the default programming language (I believe they now start with Python and include Ocaml only if you take some options).
Interestingly, it was the students with previous programming experience who had the most difficulties learning the language.
I have not found the reverse to be true, the Ocaml compiler is very strict, but it makes you attentive to details and types in a way that transfers well to other languages.
OCaml was also my first programming language. First year uni in Brazil, 2006! Thanks to a very tough French professor.
The class hated it/him. Type errors were nothing short of terrifying. `function has type (a->(b->c)->(b->d)) but should have type (a->b->(c->b)->d)` or such. If you passed the class (a big if), you'd move on to C++ and OOP and never see Ocaml/functional again.
I appreciated it for providing me so much understanding wrt mathematical thinking - functional programming, recursion, induction. Later on I took some classes/researching using SML.
Fast-forward ~12 years and I get into web dev and what I see functional programming trending!? Kinda funny... I want to get into it somehow, probably Clojure this time. It just resonates with my thinking - maybe a product of being primed for it all those years ago.
Interestingly, it was the students with previous programming experience who had the most difficulties learning the language. I have not found the reverse to be true, the Ocaml compiler is very strict, but it makes you attentive to details and types in a way that transfers well to other languages.