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Is Haskell really the language of geniuses and academia? (2019)

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Re: Is Haskell really the language of geniuses and academia? (2019)

#21

Post by gilmi »

havercosine wrote: post #2

With Haskell, one always finds articles explaining how great it is, how its features (pure functionality) lend to correct code. But, articles explaining the core use cases and how only this language enabled solving it are rare. I'd love to read someone's decision postmortem that goes something like 'Here is a problem we were looking to solve. And here is how specific features A/B/C of Haskell helped us solve it well.…

I wrote an article of a few usecases and why I think Haskell is a good match for them:

https://gilmi.me/blog/post/2020/04/28/consider-haskell

Re: Is Haskell really the language of geniuses and academia? (2019)

#22

Post by hota_mazi »

havercosine wrote: post #2

With Haskell, one always finds articles explaining how great it is, how its features (pure functionality) lend to correct code. But, articles explaining the core use cases and how only this language enabled solving it are rare. I'd love to read someone's decision postmortem that goes something like 'Here is a problem we were looking to solve. And here is how specific features A/B/C of Haskell helped us solve it well.…

You make a lot of awesome points.

The lesson I derive from Haskell is that "If it compiles, it will work"

1. is inflated nonsense

2. has a lot less to do with Haskell-the-language than with Haskell-the-type-system

I have observed a similar phenomenon with Rust. That statement is not perfect, it's hyperbole. If it compiles, it doesn't mean it will run (otherwise, why bother writing code? We just write function signatures and call it a day).

But Rust's type system is incredibly sophisticated, just like Haskell's.

And guess what... Rust supports mutability. It doesn't just support it, it encourages it. It tells you "Step over that fence, it's okay, I got your back".

It's so liberating.

The secret here is not functional programming. It's not immutability.

It's a sound and powerful type system.

Re: Is Haskell really the language of geniuses and academia? (2019)

#23

Post by spion »

havercosine wrote: post #2

With Haskell, one always finds articles explaining how great it is, how its features (pure functionality) lend to correct code. But, articles explaining the core use cases and how only this language enabled solving it are rare. I'd love to read someone's decision postmortem that goes something like 'Here is a problem we were looking to solve. And here is how specific features A/B/C of Haskell helped us solve it well.…

> The result is its widespread adoption in its niche

And everywhere else, unfortunately.

Go is an overreaction in the opposite direction. In 2010 I can't agree that there is a good reason to make a language without generics and reasonable error handling from the very start.

Re: Is Haskell really the language of geniuses and academia? (2019)

#24

Post by gilmi »

pdimitar wrote: post #20
epgui wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you folks didn't give the language enough of a chance and may have felt the friction of trying to write Haskell in the style of another language. It takes a while to learn how to go with the grain, in any language. While I totally sympathize with this, I'm not sure it's a very good vantage point from which to judge a language.

Which goes back to the root comment and the issue it raised: Where are the practical Haskell tutorials. No preaching, no "you're holding it wrong", ONLY this: "you need to handle arbitrarily nested JSON? here's how".

- Learn Haskell by building a blog generator[0] (disclaimer: I wrote this)

- Simple Haskell Handbook[1]

- Haskell (Almost) Standard Libraries[2]

- [0]: https://lhbg-book.link

- [1]: https://marcosampellegrini.com/simple-haskell-book

- [2]: https://leanpub.com/haskell-stdlibs/

Re: Is Haskell really the language of geniuses and academia? (2019)

#25

Post by epgui »

pdimitar wrote: post #20
epgui wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you folks didn't give the language enough of a chance and may have felt the friction of trying to write Haskell in the style of another language. It takes a while to learn how to go with the grain, in any language. While I totally sympathize with this, I'm not sure it's a very good vantage point from which to judge a language.

Which goes back to the root comment and the issue it raised: Where are the practical Haskell tutorials. No preaching, no "you're holding it wrong", ONLY this: "you need to handle arbitrarily nested JSON? here's how".

This is a pretty good resource, and there are many others: https://www.amazon.ca/Haskell-Depth-Vitaly-Bragilevsky/dp/16...

Learning an entirely new language is hard and requires patience and perseverance!

Re: Is Haskell really the language of geniuses and academia? (2019)

#26

Post by whateveracct »

havercosine wrote: post #2

With Haskell, one always finds articles explaining how great it is, how its features (pure functionality) lend to correct code. But, articles explaining the core use cases and how only this language enabled solving it are rare. I'd love to read someone's decision postmortem that goes something like 'Here is a problem we were looking to solve. And here is how specific features A/B/C of Haskell helped us solve it well.…

Who cares about "articles"? Go program in it. It's clearly superior if you do more than navelgaze.

Re: Is Haskell really the language of geniuses and academia? (2019)

#27

Post by asciiresort »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #4

I’ve found this explanation to be useful and easy: Haskell is the Mercedes of programming languages. It has features you didn’t know you wanted or needed and eventually other languages will get there, and Haskell will seem average/harder to differentiate. I’ve written a more practical post on why Haskell is worth using[0], excuse the clickbait title. [0]: https://vadosware.io/post/how-and-why-haskell-is-better/

There’s a reason Toyotas sell like hotcakes. It gets you from A-to-B reliably.

Re: Is Haskell really the language of geniuses and academia? (2019)

#28

Post by whateveracct »

verandaguy wrote: post #10
havercosine wrote: post #2

With Haskell, one always finds articles explaining how great it is, how its features (pure functionality) lend to correct code. But, articles explaining the core use cases and how only this language enabled solving it are rare. I'd love to read someone's decision postmortem that goes something like 'Here is a problem we were looking to solve. And here is how specific features A/B/C of Haskell helped us solve it well.…

>But, articles explaining the core use cases and how only this language enabled solving it are rare From my (limited) experience with Haskell, my impression is that it's strongest in domains that map _very_ well to formal mathematical models. Mathematical computation is an obvious example, but things like programming language parsers are also really intuitive to build in Haskell. My experience trying to use Haskell f…

What?? I've gotten paid big money to write Haskell for like a decade. None of the work had anything to do with formal models. That's comically wrong. But it was good software and Haskell was a big part of that.

Re: Is Haskell really the language of geniuses and academia? (2019)

#29

Post by whateveracct »

asciiresort wrote: post #27
hardwaresofton wrote: post #4

I’ve found this explanation to be useful and easy: Haskell is the Mercedes of programming languages. It has features you didn’t know you wanted or needed and eventually other languages will get there, and Haskell will seem average/harder to differentiate. I’ve written a more practical post on why Haskell is worth using[0], excuse the clickbait title. [0]: https://vadosware.io/post/how-and-why-haskell-is-better/

There’s a reason Toyotas sell like hotcakes. It gets you from A-to-B reliably.

But if you can afford more and enjoy the craft and skill of driving, you probably buy the Mercedes.

Most SWE's brains can't afford more though, sadly.

Re: Is Haskell really the language of geniuses and academia? (2019)

#30

Post by galaxyLogic »

Laziness is "cool", but is it really needed? I don't know any other commonly known languages that have that as a feature. Is it needed in general, or is it needed in Haskell in particular?

Same thing seems to apply to monads. Haskell programmers use them a lot but other languages seem to work just fine without them.

So my guess is that many of the special features of Haskell are solutions to problems you will have if you insist that language is lazy and pure.

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