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Haskell for a New Decade [pdf]

dev.stephendiehl.com

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Re: Haskell for a New Decade [pdf]

#111

Post by cageface »

lmm wrote: post #59
cies wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead of Haskell we should be thinking of programming language research and how to get the best ideas into our mainstream languages. I see a lot of this happening in Kotlin and Rust (not too mainstream, but clearly more mainstream than Haskell). Also FB putting it weight behind Reason/OCaml clearly shows the movement. To be fair: sdiehl did mention in the preso that copying these concept over to other languages t…

> I see a lot of this happening in Kotlin and Rust (not too mainstream, but clearly more mainstream than Haskell). But only at the most superficial level. It was heartbreaking to hear Kotlin ignore decades of Haskell and Scala experience when it couldn't be condensed into a 10-line example. They've adopted a fundamentally broken approach to representing absence and they'll regret it in 10 years, but it's already too…

What do you see as the deficiency of kotlin's handling of nulls?

Re: Haskell for a New Decade [pdf]

#112

Post by tluyben2 »

evertedsphere wrote: post #110
quickthrower2 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for that. Everything you said is from the perspective on being not only in a Haskell job but in a Haskell team. Your 3 months is 5 years for someone trying to learn on their own in their spare time. And then they need this to get a Haskell job due to the competition for such job and the queue of super smart people lining up for a Haskell job. And the pay cuts are brutal. Now you are an outlier, working on a Ha…

Anecdata point: I'm comfortable with lens at a very basic level, and if you have a good grasp of "normal" Haskell you can just compose lens operators and use combinators by playing the usual "type tetris" game of "what fits here?" and eventually you pick up a few idioms that are enough for most normal lens usage.

There are many people (at least that from the developers I know) who need to understand things fully before they 'can' use them. One of my friends is mentally stuck for 30 years on a platform because he cannot use what he does not fully understand. He tried Haskell (a few years ago) but instead of going through exercises or just trying to implement something, he read a book and noticed he did not understand basic (monads and such...) things and quit. He cannot touch a computer unless understanding arrives first. He is an extreme case but many (especially non-entrepreneurial in my experience) people I know have this in some ways.

Re: Haskell for a New Decade [pdf]

#113

Post by jose_zap »

tluyben2 wrote: post #112
evertedsphere wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdata point: I'm comfortable with lens at a very basic level, and if you have a good grasp of "normal" Haskell you can just compose lens operators and use combinators by playing the usual "type tetris" game of "what fits here?" and eventually you pick up a few idioms that are enough for most normal lens usage.

There are many people (at least that from the developers I know) who need to understand things fully before they 'can' use them. One of my friends is mentally stuck for 30 years on a platform because he cannot use what he does not fully understand. He tried Haskell (a few years ago) but instead of going through exercises or just trying to implement something, he read a book and noticed he did not understand basic (mo…

Ask him to explain in full detail how the flushing mechanism of a WC works. Then ask him if he uses any alternative solution he understands better.

I think it is quite common, even for people who want to understand things at a fundamental level, to just use stuff without said understanding.

Re: Haskell for a New Decade [pdf]

#114

Post by hopia »

nh2 wrote: post #37
quickthrower2 wrote: post #9

I think the focus on Haskell is missing the mark a bit. Haskell is about programming language researchers and enthusiasts having a excellent example language to try out ideas. Over the years it has turned into a production ready platform. As the PDF shows there are many languages spun off Haskell and it doesn't even mention them all. Then there are language features in C# and Java, Typescript etc. that are coming acr…

Counter point on "investment": I was in a Haskell team at Google, and have trained groups at various companies professionally. From that experience, for a normal developer with working experience in Java, Python, or C++: * It takes 2-3 weeks of full-time onboarding (half with a coach, half self-study) to work on a typical industrial Haskell project. * It takes around 3 months of full-time participation in such a proj…

I'd say it took roughly 3 months on my own to learn enough Haskell to write a web server that does what I want. So I'd expect with professional coaching a smart person would end up on a decent level in 3 months, ready to put code to production.

Re: Haskell for a New Decade [pdf]

#115

Post by hopia »

nightski wrote: post #19
quickthrower2 wrote: post #9

I think the focus on Haskell is missing the mark a bit. Haskell is about programming language researchers and enthusiasts having a excellent example language to try out ideas. Over the years it has turned into a production ready platform. As the PDF shows there are many languages spun off Haskell and it doesn't even mention them all. Then there are language features in C# and Java, Typescript etc. that are coming acr…

I can't speak for everyone but for me the type system is not what made Haskell difficult. I loved it. What made it difficult was laziness. I'd find myself always trying to reason about execution (even though most of the time you probably shouldn't). Laziness might even be fine in a world built around it, but for a language to be practical it has to interface with systems that are not designed that way (numerous exter…

Personally, I found precisely the type system the most challenging part. It still is. The whole type level programming is something you just don't have in almost any other language so that's completely novel to me.

Re: Haskell for a New Decade [pdf]

#116

Post by kungato »

nh2 wrote: post #37
quickthrower2 wrote: post #9

I think the focus on Haskell is missing the mark a bit. Haskell is about programming language researchers and enthusiasts having a excellent example language to try out ideas. Over the years it has turned into a production ready platform. As the PDF shows there are many languages spun off Haskell and it doesn't even mention them all. Then there are language features in C# and Java, Typescript etc. that are coming acr…

Counter point on "investment": I was in a Haskell team at Google, and have trained groups at various companies professionally. From that experience, for a normal developer with working experience in Java, Python, or C++: * It takes 2-3 weeks of full-time onboarding (half with a coach, half self-study) to work on a typical industrial Haskell project. * It takes around 3 months of full-time participation in such a proj…

My first job was at faang and it took me 3 months to be productive in C# working on a compiler and everyone said 3 months is expected so 3 months for Haskell is nice

Re: Haskell for a New Decade [pdf]

#117

Post by kazinator »

jeffdavis wrote: post #88

"Software is Terrible and Getting Worse" I wonder if increasing bloat is a permanent thing? Will software ever transition to a cycle of simplification? Has it ever gone through a simplification cycle in the past? Physical engineering has some limits that push back on complexity. You can only cram so many gears into a Swiss watch. An item can only have so many parts before manfacturing becomes a nightmare. What will p…

> Has it ever gone through a simplification cycle in the past?

Yes; whenever smaller, but less powerful hardware replaced larger, entire bloated old platforms were discarded or ignored by a generation of new users.

Mainframe to micro to mini.

Desktop Windows to Android.

Re: Haskell for a New Decade [pdf]

#118

Post by acomar »

travisgriggs wrote: post #95
quickthrower2 wrote: post #9

I think the focus on Haskell is missing the mark a bit. Haskell is about programming language researchers and enthusiasts having a excellent example language to try out ideas. Over the years it has turned into a production ready platform. As the PDF shows there are many languages spun off Haskell and it doesn't even mention them all. Then there are language features in C# and Java, Typescript etc. that are coming acr…

I'll respect your opinion but sign up for the "not what other people want" crowd. I started learning Haskell last week. I have a small rest service I need to write and I want to try something new. Why Haskell? Because I miss seeing excellence/purity in computer languages. Nearly 10 years ago I jumped out of the Smalltalk balloon. It was one of the only languages where Object Oriented felt like a paradigm shift (CLOS…

there's a moment with the language where you go from trying to do things the way you would have done them in another language and instead, your brain adapts, and you learn to do them the functional way. because it's Haskell, you learn that you can quickly simplify things -- a little glue, a better understanding of the various functions you can pull out from the standard library, etc. -- and something that seemed incredibly complex reduces (like, for a very strong definition of like, algebra) to a few simple terms. many parts of the language come together and make it all click in this way: the syntax, the automatic currying of functions, the purity, and the type system. you start to look at all code differently. you start to see it as a bunch of puzzle pieces that can be fit together just so. and when you go back to try and use something else, you find yourself reflexively reaching for tools that aren't there, or that, removed from their original context, no longer have the support that made them quite so useful or so pleasant in Haskell. you even feel it going to other functional languages -- sticking all these parantheses into this lisp is obscuring the simple details, the puzzle pieces extended with decoration that makes them fit together less well.

i don't mean to suggest Haskell is without flaws. but i do think you'll experience the paradigm shift as something concrete. there are almost no languages like it, after all.

Re: Haskell for a New Decade [pdf]

#119

Post by domlebo70 »

travisgriggs wrote: post #95
quickthrower2 wrote: post #9

I think the focus on Haskell is missing the mark a bit. Haskell is about programming language researchers and enthusiasts having a excellent example language to try out ideas. Over the years it has turned into a production ready platform. As the PDF shows there are many languages spun off Haskell and it doesn't even mention them all. Then there are language features in C# and Java, Typescript etc. that are coming acr…

I'll respect your opinion but sign up for the "not what other people want" crowd. I started learning Haskell last week. I have a small rest service I need to write and I want to try something new. Why Haskell? Because I miss seeing excellence/purity in computer languages. Nearly 10 years ago I jumped out of the Smalltalk balloon. It was one of the only languages where Object Oriented felt like a paradigm shift (CLOS…

I am interested to hear what you think in 6mo time. For me, it definitely lives up to your expectations. But it's not without its warts.

Re: Haskell for a New Decade [pdf]

#120

Post by waltpad »

diablerouge wrote: post #24
chrisseaton wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then there are language features in C# and Java, Typescript etc. that are coming across from Haskell. What language features in Java came from Haskell?

Generics, no? Philip Wadler, one of the designers of Haskell, was involved with the introduction of generics to Java.

I don't think these technologies are related: Java Generics is based on subtyping, however Haskell doesn't support subtyping (afaik).
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