[Haskell-cafe] Aim Of Haskell

[Steve Downey]

The core of the 'Blub Paradox'.

There is almost no upside for a manager to approve an 'unusual'
language for a project. Most technology changes are driven by
engineers, and most engineers are by nature risk averse, even though
they also tend to be neophiles.
So, on a given project, they'll try one, maybe two new things, but
ones they think have a high chance of sucess.

Smart managers let these bets be made, because a technology advantage
is often a force multiplier.

Now, engineers have to decide where to spend their intellectual
capital and the markers they can call in from management. Haskell
seems to be a good place to spend intellectual capital. There
certainly seems to be some growing consensus that functional
programming approaches are the next 'big thing'. Multicore and true
concurrency seem to demand a new approach.
The question in my mind is, is Haskell the Smalltalk of the '10s or
the Java? Either way, I already believe that it's worthwhile learning.
As to libraries, they seem to be the natural result of engineers
learning new languages. And because of the internet and open source,
you get a positive feedback cycle. The Jakarta project is the best
recent example. Almost overnight, java became the defacto serverside
language. A niche almost opposite where the language was being
pitched.
So what can Haskell do better enough that the feedback cycle can be jumpstarted?



On 12/15/06, Joachim Durchholz <jo at durchholz.org> wrote:
> Tomasz Zielonka schrieb:
> > On Thu, Dec 14, 2006 at 09:56:57PM +0100, Joachim Durchholz wrote:
> >> OK, there's the option of replacing working tools with hype.
> >> It worked for C++, and it worked for Java.
> >> Pity I don't have the slightest idea how to work up a hype for Haskell.
> >
> > Who would want such a hype?
> > Why not simply start picking up fruits before the mainstream notices?
> > ;-)
>
> Because a mainstream language has more tools, more libraries, and an
> easier job search.
>
> Regards,
> Jo
>
> _______________________________________________
> Haskell-Cafe mailing list
> Haskell-Cafe at haskell.org
> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
>