Comments on: Is Haskell really that… great as a programming language?

By: cx

cx — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:54:25 +0000

@jartur, you are absolutely right. No doubt.
Actually I was talking about different kinds of tools.
(I have some problems with writing down my thoughts precisely. Alas. Err, sorry. I feel stupid. Please be patient with meI wish I was an author but my brain works in a some different way. And damn I love this way.)

And another point about Haskell. You are facing with a lot of problems during initial studying. And you should better use this situation for your (well, not only your) profit. Try do at least two things:
1. Write all problems down. Maybe later you or somebody else will provide a verbose solution/recommendation/etc
2. Suggest some improvements (libs/syntax/whatever). As in #1 maybe you or someone else could take it into account and make some changes.
Doing this you will definitely provide a help to Haskell newbie (yeah I know about the great mess of Monad tutors) and later it will be really interesting to collect elegant solutions for these ‘issues’.
(imho)

By: jartur

jartur — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:15:41 +0000

cx, actually you can compare tools.
You can compare different models of screwdrivers, or, say, mice & keyboards. The question here is whether your analogy is correct or not. Are different PLs are different models of keyboards or they are more like a scalpel & a hammer? I don’t know.
Actually, this doesn’t even matter. And in general I agree with you & never had said that I don’t, I think.
All in all I think that this discussion is somewhat retarded, like most of abstract PL discussion out there. It has no point.

By: cx

cx — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 05:04:04 +0000

I don’t belive in bad and good languages. I will never say that either ‘Haskell is a good programming language’ or ‘the cost of writing *usefull* application in Haskell is high’. This is completely wrong.
First, comparing tools is incorrect. Try to compare a syringe and a scalpel. What tool should I use for a generic medicine operations? (hello jartur and yours usefull applications).
Second, each tool was designed with a few things in mind.
You can use hammer instead of screwdriver. This is your choice. Nobody will blame you for it (at least I wouldn’t). But ofcourse some things will become more difficult… It is hardly ever possible to make ‘The Great Univiersal Tool For Life and Everthing’.
So why are you saying that the price for writing ‘useful Haskell application’ is too high? What the hell is useful application?
When I need to play with some math model I chose Haskell. When I need to play with some console utils I choose ‘bash/sh’. When I need to deal with some generic ‘high level’ things in imperative manner I choose python. When I need some more ‘low level’ control I’ll write an extension/module for python in C. That’s it.
I guess you are either using a wrong tool (haskell) for some specific ‘useful appication’ or you didn’t get the ‘Haskell way’…

By: Frank Thomsen

Frank Thomsen — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:49:14 +0000

Haskell is a fine language when you want to give functional programming a go. But as soon as you want to write anything useful it just doesn’t cut it; it is too esoteric.
If you want to try out functional programming, consider using Erlang, F# or OCaml instead.

By: jartur

jartur — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:23:52 +0000

Norman, the most successful apps in Haskell I believe are Darcs & XMonad.
Everything else is mostly CS exercises or mathematical explorations.

This is why I said that there is no evidence to prove that Haskell is actually suitable for general programming.

By: Norman

Norman — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:16:07 +0000

Haskell : where are the apps ? Besides compilers and other such programs written by gurus that would write great programs in assembly if they had to anyway…

Are there examples of non trivial GUI programs ? I’ve only seen slow toys that weigh several MBs.

By: jartur

jartur — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:46:49 +0000

@Antoine, I see. I wonder if I have enough perseverance to wrap my head around Haskell someday.

By: Antoine

Antoine — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:36:58 +0000

I’ve been using Haskell for personal projects pretty solid for over a year now, and while I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered the language - things like IO become just as second nature as in any other language.

I know it’s not a dynamic language, but once IO actions become Just Another Data Type, the feeling of power you get from slinging around custom control structures on the fly is pretty cool.

The downside is that when you come across an unfamiliar Haskell library all of the crazy combinators and abstractions used can sometimes be a barrier to use. But that doesn’t happen often. Most of the libraries I want to are straightforward.

By: jartur

jartur — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:02:57 +0000

Dmitriy, I mean C++ is almost as hard to *master* as Haskell. Though they are hard in very different aspects, they both are very hard to become proficient in however.

By: Dmitriy Dzema

Dmitriy Dzema — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 02:55:45 +0000

jartur, i think it’s not appropriate to compare Haskell to C++. C++ is hard in details and realization, but not too hard in concepts (OOP). But haskell is hard in conceptions of monads, categories, etc. This concepts makes it hard to learn. Remember how OOP was to told to us in the university. It was strange, but then you master with this concept, any OOP language is easy to learn and understand.