[Haskell-cafe] New slogan for haskell.org

Steve Lihn stevelihn at gmail.com
Tue Dec 11 22:47:36 EST 2007


I have not used Haskell to write large scale program, but I am
certainly interested to know the answer to these questions.

Can Haskell offer the following as Pythoner boasts?
1. can be used for many kinds of software development. (some may argue yes,
but different kinds from what python is good for.)
2. It offers strong support for integration with other languages and tools
(FFI? Is the support strong?)
3. comes with extensive standard libraries (this is a yes, and is getting
better every day)
4. and can be learned in a few days (very unlikely, maybe a few months to a
year)

What is Haskell good for?
* Domain Specific Language (who needs it? other than academics and Wall
Streeter?)
* smaller program and much less bugs
* concise program logic
* program that can be reasoned (is that the reason Haskell module comes with
so few comments and documentation?)
* highly reusable code (due to higher order function and type class?)
* clear distinction between functional and imperative (is this really an
advantage? almost everything I deal with is IO, network, and db related,
what is left for purely functional?)

A person/team has to be convinced of these "high-level" questions before he
can decide to bet his project on Haskell. That is the thought process I
am struggling through right now.

steve


On Dec 11, 2007 9:12 PM, <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:

> FWIW to the discussion about changing the main page, I was reading the
> CUFP paper and I saw some germane comments (and the writer is apparently one
> Noel Welsh, whose name I don't see in the thread); the context is a
> discussion (pg 17) of various members or potential members of the Haskell
> community and how supported they are:
>
>  "What are the needs of the potential programmer? People program to solve
> prob-
>  lems; so there had better be a clear statement of what kinds of problem
> the
>  language is good for. The Python community does a good job of this on
>  python.org: "Python is a dynamic object-oriented programming language
> that can
>  be used for many kinds of software development. It offers strong support
> for
>  integration with other languages and tools, comes with extensive standard
>  libraries, and can be learned in a few days."
>
>  Compare this with the equivalent from haskell.org: "Haskell is a
>  general purpose, purely functional programming language featuring static
>  typing, higher-order functions, polymorphism, type classes, and monadic
>  effects. Haskell compilers are freely available for almost any computer."
> If
>  you understand all that, you don't need to be here: you're already a
> Haskell
>  programmer."
>
> --
> gwern
>
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>
>
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