Ask HN: What "exotic" language to learn? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What "exotic" language to learn?

#21

Post by tome » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 7:35 PM UTC

jonsterling wrote: post #19

jonsterling wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only Haskell were pure...

Since I'm being downvoted, let me clarify for the “hackers”. By “pure”, I mean lacking unaccounted side effects (including crashing and non-termination). I take a rather strong view, as you can tell, of what it means to “support” pure functional programming. That is, I think it is insufficient to show that your code lacks appeals to falsehood and rampant non-termination. Because your code is linked with other code fr…

> So yes, Virginia, there is indeed a Pure Functional Programming. But you can't do it in Haskell.

True, but if you want to get as close to purity as possible whilst actually writing usable software Haskell is the answer. I'd love it if Agda was actually a fully fledged programming language, but currently it is not.

Re: Ask HN: What "exotic" language to learn?

#22

Post by jonsterling » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 8:06 PM UTC

tome wrote: post #21

jonsterling wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I'm being downvoted, let me clarify for the “hackers”. By “pure”, I mean lacking unaccounted side effects (including crashing and non-termination). I take a rather strong view, as you can tell, of what it means to “support” pure functional programming. That is, I think it is insufficient to show that your code lacks appeals to falsehood and rampant non-termination. Because your code is linked with other code fr…

> So yes, Virginia, there is indeed a Pure Functional Programming. But you can't do it in Haskell. True, but if you want to get as close to purity as possible whilst actually writing usable software Haskell is the answer. I'd love it if Agda was actually a fully fledged programming language, but currently it is not.

Yeah, though Idris I think will soon become the “reasonable trade-off” language that Haskell is today. We could do worse, I suppose!

What I really want is a proper Epigram with OTT (or, be still my quaking heart, HoTT).

Re: Ask HN: What "exotic" language to learn?

#23

Post by tome » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 8:31 PM UTC

jonsterling wrote: post #22

tome wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So yes, Virginia, there is indeed a Pure Functional Programming. But you can't do it in Haskell. True, but if you want to get as close to purity as possible whilst actually writing usable software Haskell is the answer. I'd love it if Agda was actually a fully fledged programming language, but currently it is not.

Yeah, though Idris I think will soon become the “reasonable trade-off” language that Haskell is today. We could do worse, I suppose! What I really want is a proper Epigram with OTT (or, be still my quaking heart, HoTT).

> Yeah, though Idris I think will soon become the “reasonable trade-off” language

That would be cool.

Don't know anything about Epigram though. Dependent types is still firmly on my todo list.

Re: Ask HN: What "exotic" language to learn?

#24

Post by sejje » Mon, Jul 22, 2013, 9:49 PM UTC

cgag wrote: post #16

Clojure or Haskell would be my choices, depending on how into static typing you are or how interested in lisp you are. I really would want to learn both, and if that's an eventual goal, I think Clojure might be an easier first step.

I second this. I'm pretty proficient in all of the typical languages in web development...PHP, Python, Ruby.

I started SICP, but followed along in Clojure, and I've been having a blast, plus my eyes are opening to a lot of things that I needed someone smart to tell me.

I don't have plans to ship Clojure in production, but it has still shaped what I'm doing on a daily basis in other languages.

Re: Ask HN: What "exotic" language to learn?

#25

Post by jonsterling » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 11:51 PM UTC

tome wrote: post #23

jonsterling wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, though Idris I think will soon become the “reasonable trade-off” language that Haskell is today. We could do worse, I suppose! What I really want is a proper Epigram with OTT (or, be still my quaking heart, HoTT).

> Yeah, though Idris I think will soon become the “reasonable trade-off” language That would be cool. Don't know anything about Epigram though. Dependent types is still firmly on my todo list.

Come hang out with us on freenode (#agda, #coq, #idris) and we'll try to answer any questions you have about dependent types and such!