Let’s face it, is this researcher ever going to read a book on scientific computing in OCaml? Most researchers won’t even read a book on scientific computing.
So I'd expect that every year, there will at least be a class of 30 scientists taking this course.
That's like saying "most programmers would never read a book about science, or finance...", or whatever field they are writing software for.
Observation in research support, I'd guess. It typically no longer seems to be the case that you do whatever you need to for your data.