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I learned Haskell in just 15 years

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Re: I learned Haskell in just 15 years

#2
Cute. All kidding aside, though, functional programming is worth the effort to learn, and it doesn't actually take 15 years. The payoff is at the end of the article:

"It’s quite natural to program in Haskell by building a declarative model of your domain data, writing pure functions over that data, and interacting with the real world at the program’s boundaries. That’s my favorite way to work, Haskell or not."

Haskell can be intimidating, though, so I would recommend F# for most beginners. It supports OOP and doesn't require every single function to be pure, so the learning curve is less intense, but you end up absorbing the same lesson as above.

Re: I learned Haskell in just 15 years

#3
post #2

Cute. All kidding aside, though, functional programming is worth the effort to learn, and it doesn't actually take 15 years. The payoff is at the end of the article: "It’s quite natural to program in Haskell by building a declarative model of your domain data, writing pure functions over that data, and interacting with the real world at the program’s boundaries. That’s my favorite way to work, Haskell or not." Haskel…

Yes - the value of functional programming isn't that working in OCAML, or F#, or Haskell is 10x as productive as other languages. But that it can teach you worthwhile lessens about designing software that apply equally to imperative languages.

Modelling the business domain, reasoning and managing side effects, avoiding common imperative bugs, these are all valuable skills to develop.

F# is a great language to learn, and very approachable. Worst part about it is interacting with antiquated .NET API's. (I can't believe the state that .NET support for common serialization formats is still in...)

Re: I learned Haskell in just 15 years

#4
post #3
post #2

Cute. All kidding aside, though, functional programming is worth the effort to learn, and it doesn't actually take 15 years. The payoff is at the end of the article: "It’s quite natural to program in Haskell by building a declarative model of your domain data, writing pure functions over that data, and interacting with the real world at the program’s boundaries. That’s my favorite way to work, Haskell or not." Haskel…

Yes - the value of functional programming isn't that working in OCAML, or F#, or Haskell is 10x as productive as other languages. But that it can teach you worthwhile lessens about designing software that apply equally to imperative languages. Modelling the business domain, reasoning and managing side effects, avoiding common imperative bugs, these are all valuable skills to develop. F# is a great language to learn,…

> Yes - the value of functional programming isn't that working in OCAML, or F#, or Haskell is 10x as productive as other languages.

This is not true in my personal experience.

As has been famously said (paraphrased): Functional programming makes tough problems easy and easy problems tough.

In other words the value of functional programming depends on your domain.

Re: I learned Haskell in just 15 years

#6
post #2

Cute. All kidding aside, though, functional programming is worth the effort to learn, and it doesn't actually take 15 years. The payoff is at the end of the article: "It’s quite natural to program in Haskell by building a declarative model of your domain data, writing pure functions over that data, and interacting with the real world at the program’s boundaries. That’s my favorite way to work, Haskell or not." Haskel…

That’s interesting because F#’s OOP, as someone who knows neither C# nor Java, makes it more intimidating to me than OCaml.

Also interesting that when FP is mentioned, Hindley-Milner is implicitly understood to be part of FP too even though it doesn’t have to be. Clojure emphasizes immutability and FP but with dynamic typing and everything that comes with that.

Re: I learned Haskell in just 15 years

#7
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - the value of functional programming isn't that working in OCAML, or F#, or Haskell is 10x as productive as other languages. But that it can teach you worthwhile lessens about designing software that apply equally to imperative languages. Modelling the business domain, reasoning and managing side effects, avoiding common imperative bugs, these are all valuable skills to develop. F# is a great language to learn,…

> Yes - the value of functional programming isn't that working in OCAML, or F#, or Haskell is 10x as productive as other languages. This is not true in my personal experience. As has been famously said (paraphrased): Functional programming makes tough problems easy and easy problems tough. In other words the value of functional programming depends on your domain.

So you’re saying that it does make you 10x as productive?

Re: I learned Haskell in just 15 years

#8
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - the value of functional programming isn't that working in OCAML, or F#, or Haskell is 10x as productive as other languages. But that it can teach you worthwhile lessens about designing software that apply equally to imperative languages. Modelling the business domain, reasoning and managing side effects, avoiding common imperative bugs, these are all valuable skills to develop. F# is a great language to learn,…

> Yes - the value of functional programming isn't that working in OCAML, or F#, or Haskell is 10x as productive as other languages. This is not true in my personal experience. As has been famously said (paraphrased): Functional programming makes tough problems easy and easy problems tough. In other words the value of functional programming depends on your domain.

Maybe my phrasing is not clear - I meant that these languages are indeed not significantly more productive.

Re: I learned Haskell in just 15 years

#9
post #2

Cute. All kidding aside, though, functional programming is worth the effort to learn, and it doesn't actually take 15 years. The payoff is at the end of the article: "It’s quite natural to program in Haskell by building a declarative model of your domain data, writing pure functions over that data, and interacting with the real world at the program’s boundaries. That’s my favorite way to work, Haskell or not." Haskel…

But why do we need Haskell for this?

Re: I learned Haskell in just 15 years

#10
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - the value of functional programming isn't that working in OCAML, or F#, or Haskell is 10x as productive as other languages. But that it can teach you worthwhile lessens about designing software that apply equally to imperative languages. Modelling the business domain, reasoning and managing side effects, avoiding common imperative bugs, these are all valuable skills to develop. F# is a great language to learn,…

> Yes - the value of functional programming isn't that working in OCAML, or F#, or Haskell is 10x as productive as other languages. This is not true in my personal experience. As has been famously said (paraphrased): Functional programming makes tough problems easy and easy problems tough. In other words the value of functional programming depends on your domain.

> easy problems tough.

That needs a qualifier: it can make easy problems tough if you're not familiar with how to solve them in a functional context.

A big part of that is because smart people have already solved the tough problems and made them available as language features or libraries.

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