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Why GitHub used Haskell for Semantic

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Re: Why GitHub used Haskell for Semantic

#191

Post by hardwaresofton »

agentultra wrote: post #177
hardwaresofton wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the main reasons I don't care much about Haskell is because without any side-by-side comparisons of Haskell vs I don't understand what the Haskell advantages are, and I don't know when I'm dealing with a problem space where Haskell would help me. This is one of haskell's biggest problems. It's just enough outside of the normal flow of imperative languages (yet usable for the same problems) that you can't tel…

The selling point for me to get into Haskell was how much better it's lowest bar is than pretty much every other language I've used so far. It's not perfect but it has a very good effort to power ratio. For example, I have a database with millions of unstructured, schemaless JSON documents. The documents are mostly similar but the schema is defined by Javascript code that has been maintained and modified for many, ma…

This is an awesome usecase and a really good use of the expressiveness of haskell -- if your org has an engineering blog, please write about it I'd love to read more.

Re: Why GitHub used Haskell for Semantic

#192

Post by solidsnack9000 »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #183
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Super Smash Brothers, there are some people who play and win with Zelda. Just not that many.

I don’t say “I failed high school maths” because I’m proud of it. I’m not special. I’m not particularly clever. I don’t know how else to drive the point home that you don’t need to be a genius to build software and enjoy doing it in Haskell.

No one is arguing that you need to be a genius to use Haskell. How does my argument come across that way?

Re: Why GitHub used Haskell for Semantic

#193

Post by karmakaze »

chas wrote: post #190
karmakaze wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this info. What I really want to know is the value prop for learning/using monads etc. The examples of IO, State, Maybe, List, STM given seem like they'd be dealt with just fine in Clean.

I think it's important to be precise about how the monad abstraction and type system features interact in order to combine pure and impure code. I wrote a comment elsewhere in the thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20112333 ) where I conclude that while the monad abstraction is useful for making a usable interface and writing programs which are agnostic to how their state is implemented, the fundamental wo…

This is want I needed to hear. I haven't used either Clean nor Haskell other than playing with them and my introduction to Clean seemed more lightweight where there some syntax to make uniqueness seem easier than the same in Haskell. On further reading, when seeing the u:[...] syntax rather than * I can see they're really quite the same. They way the uniqueness attributes are described seems like a separate axis than data types where in Haskell there's just so much type. Also the docs for Clean avoids using category theory terms for the most part, getting you started by showing you the syntax to do certain things.

I expect to be coming back to this comment and the references quite a few times until it clicks for me.

Re: Why GitHub used Haskell for Semantic

#194

Post by mwcampbell »

lmm wrote: post #129
ookdatnog wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - abstract data types I suppose you meant to say "algebraic data types"? (which have been adopted by Rust and Swift, and even the C++ stdlib)

C++ doesn't actually have ADTs. std::variant is not a true sum type (1 + 1 + 2 = 3, so to speak).

Can you please explain further why std::variant is not a true sum type?

Re: Why GitHub used Haskell for Semantic

#195

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #192
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t say “I failed high school maths” because I’m proud of it. I’m not special. I’m not particularly clever. I don’t know how else to drive the point home that you don’t need to be a genius to build software and enjoy doing it in Haskell.

No one is arguing that you need to be a genius to use Haskell. How does my argument come across that way?

> No one is arguing that you need to be a genius to use Haskell.

I’ve come across this sentiment so many times. Haskell definitely has a reputation for being an “ivory tower” language.

> How does my argument come across that way?

I’m not too familiar with Zelda, but it sounded like you were saying “some people are just able to do these things that most others can’t.”

If that isn’t what you were saying, then I am sorry for misinterpreting. I’m genuinely not trying to argue or take you out of context or anything like that.

Re: Why GitHub used Haskell for Semantic

#196

Post by lmm »

mwcampbell wrote: post #194
lmm wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C++ doesn't actually have ADTs. std::variant is not a true sum type (1 + 1 + 2 = 3, so to speak).

Can you please explain further why std::variant is not a true sum type?

If you form a variant with multiple copies of the same type they will "collapse". E.g. std::variant behaves like std::variant.

Re: Why GitHub used Haskell for Semantic

#197

Post by weavie »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #176
weavie wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Small shameless plug, No point plugging if you don't provide a link for us! :-)

I hear you! I was going to try and get the CountMin post done this weekend and update this but I guess I gotta let it roll with what I have already done: One of my better Haskell posts is a series on writing REST APIs. It kind of gets off the rails type wise as I try to get more and more clever, but I rein it in: https://vadosware.io/post/rest-ish-services-in-haskell-part-...

Nice, I will have a read.

I think you need to get rid of the margin-left and margin-right styles on '.article-content pre' for '@media screen and (min-width: 989px)'. It pushes the code off the bounds of the page on my screen.

Re: Why GitHub used Haskell for Semantic

#198

Post by weavie »

ronanyeah wrote: post #152
weavie wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elm is a language + a framework whereas Purescript is just a language. There are a number of different frameworks you can use with Purescript from copies of the Elm architecture to wrappers over React to Halogen which can be thought of as a componentized Elm with multiple update loops. Halogen is awesome, really hits the sweet spot for me.

I wrote some Purescript and would definitely recommend anyone try it for themselves. What eventually turned me off was tooling/workflow things like no accepted code formatter, poor graphql support, too many competing ways of doing basic tasks, too many libraries that were just JS wrappers. Also I got a vibe from functionalprogramming.slack.com that there was more interest in the latest FP whitepaper than beginner fri…

I think that's why I like it so much. There are lots of ways to do things. I don't think I am using any significant libraries that are JS wrappers. Halogen is written in pure Purescript. But the advantage of PS over Elm is that it is easier to wrap JS, hence the many options..

For sure its focus is not as a beginners language and it will never reach Typescript levels of popularity. But it has found it's niche, and it is in a good place.

Elm is a very nice language too.

Re: Why GitHub used Haskell for Semantic

#199

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

baroffoos wrote: post #188
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely false. Many “real world” businesses are shipping web apps in Haskell. Anecdotally, they take less time to write than the equivalent Rails app.

Many web apps might be written in haskell but I assure you many many many more are written in ruby. I very much doubt you will find a haskell developer willing to build your web store in haskell for $15/hour. With rails you can just import Spree, make a few modifications and host it and you are done.

I write Haskell web apps, and I used to write Ruby web apps. You don't need to assure me; I'm well aware.

If you're in the realm of "import Spree, make a few modifications and you are done", then sure, use Ruby.

The products I work on just aren't that generic/trivial.

> I very much doubt you will find a haskell developer willing to build your web store in haskell for $15/hour.

The market is larger than you think. I have hired people before at $15 per hour. I have people working for me now at $23 per hour. Not everything needs to be stupid SV money.

Re: Why GitHub used Haskell for Semantic

#200

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

baroffoos wrote: post #187
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesod is plenty mature. There are reasonable docs and examples. I'm not sure what else to tell you. I run three web businesses on Yesod, and it accounts for 100% of my income. I'm also not a great programmer, and have a long history of just "hacking things out". The stuff works, and it's ready to go, today .

I spent 7 months trying to build a json api using yesod with a friend. We had nothing but headaches. Its insanely hard to find example code or search issues when using yesod. Hardly anything exists about it on stack overflow already so any time I had an issue I had to post it on SO and wait a day for someone to answer it which meant I could only do about an hour of programming a day. I ended up giving up used RoR and…

…Seven months? I can't imagine what you were doing for that length of time. It's not that hard[0].

[0]: https://pbrisbin.com/posts/writing_json_apis_with_yesod/

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