A Haskell Programmer Tries to Learn Racket • Hacker News Board

Re: A Haskell Programmer Tries to Learn Racket

#11

Post by MichaelGG » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 1:47 AM UTC

gaigepr wrote: post #3

"...but nothing beyond that. As long as Node.js exists in this world, I can't truly hate anything else." I found this hilarious. I am also rather underwhelmed (to be nice) with Nodejs and a little bothered at its wide adoption. I have also been learning racket recently; my formal language and functional programming class uses it. I had some previous experience with common lisp but the raw nature of scheme still pleas…

I keep flipping back and forth, thinking I don't get it, then thinking others don't get it. Single-threaded JS with callbacks. OK? What am I missing?

The only thing Node has going for it is a lot of networking libraries. It's not fast, the async style leads to callback hell, JS is a terrible language, and their package management system is slow and bloated (or at least the packages are)[1]. Yet people think it's some new kind of thing that's just so awesome, despite MS doing server-side JS in the mid-90s.

Sure, people can use whatever makes them happy. I'm just confused as to why anyone is particularly impressed with Node or JS.

1: Seriously, to automate builds, I ended up saving the node_modules directory then symlinking it in to the build environment. Otherwise a simple CSS/JS/etc. grunt build took 15 minutes instead of 1. And it seems every module pulls in its own copy of dependencies, so you end up with 300-character deep paths. There's no apparent reason it needs to be like this.

Re: A Haskell Programmer Tries to Learn Racket

#12

Post by Crito » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 2:09 AM UTC

comex wrote: post #10

One note: > Racket's default IDE is better than GHCi and probably on par with Emacs (you almost certainly can configure Emacs to be better than anything, but it's not trivial and people don't bother, while DrRacket provides autocompletion and documentation out of the box). Last I used it (a few years ago), DrRacket was very laggy, so I would find it very hard to use for a serious project. YMMV, maybe it's improved.

I love Racket but I have only ever had the same experience with DrRacket. I don't know what it is trying to do, but it brings my modest laptop to its knees.

Re: A Haskell Programmer Tries to Learn Racket

#13

Post by beefsack » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 2:14 AM UTC

gamegoblin wrote: post #8

Strilanc wrote: post #7

Is this... a Let's Play of learning a programming language? Because it's surprisingly effective. I learned and I was entertained.

I would definitely watch a video series in which an experienced and talented programmer tried out various programming languages for an hour and gave first impressions, comparisons, etc as they hacked something together during the video.

The idea of a twitch.tv stream sounds interesting, with viewers throwing small problems at the coder to solve as they fumble around with a new language.

Re: A Haskell Programmer Tries to Learn Racket

#14

Post by anotherevan » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 2:27 AM UTC

gaigepr wrote: post #3

"...but nothing beyond that. As long as Node.js exists in this world, I can't truly hate anything else." I found this hilarious. I am also rather underwhelmed (to be nice) with Nodejs and a little bothered at its wide adoption. I have also been learning racket recently; my formal language and functional programming class uses it. I had some previous experience with common lisp but the raw nature of scheme still pleas…

I wasn't going to bother reading the source article, up until I saw this excerpt in your comment. Now it is added to my reader. :-)

Re: A Haskell Programmer Tries to Learn Racket

#15

Post by mattgreenrocks » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 2:27 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #11

gaigepr wrote: post #3

"...but nothing beyond that. As long as Node.js exists in this world, I can't truly hate anything else." I found this hilarious. I am also rather underwhelmed (to be nice) with Nodejs and a little bothered at its wide adoption. I have also been learning racket recently; my formal language and functional programming class uses it. I had some previous experience with common lisp but the raw nature of scheme still pleas…

I keep flipping back and forth, thinking I don't get it, then thinking others don't get it. Single-threaded JS with callbacks. OK? What am I missing? The only thing Node has going for it is a lot of networking libraries. It's not fast, the async style leads to callback hell, JS is a terrible language, and their package management system is slow and bloated (or at least the packages are)[1]. Yet people think it's some…

It's popular because people think other people think it's popular.

There's no accounting for taste, but, it won't last. :)

Re: A Haskell Programmer Tries to Learn Racket

#16

Post by SmileyKeith » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 2:31 AM UTC

I love the play by play of exactly what you're thinking as you're doing something new. I find them quite informative.

Re: A Haskell Programmer Tries to Learn Racket

#17

Post by nly » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 2:36 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #11

gaigepr wrote: post #3

"...but nothing beyond that. As long as Node.js exists in this world, I can't truly hate anything else." I found this hilarious. I am also rather underwhelmed (to be nice) with Nodejs and a little bothered at its wide adoption. I have also been learning racket recently; my formal language and functional programming class uses it. I had some previous experience with common lisp but the raw nature of scheme still pleas…

I keep flipping back and forth, thinking I don't get it, then thinking others don't get it. Single-threaded JS with callbacks. OK? What am I missing? The only thing Node has going for it is a lot of networking libraries. It's not fast, the async style leads to callback hell, JS is a terrible language, and their package management system is slow and bloated (or at least the packages are)[1]. Yet people think it's some…

My theories:

1. Using the same programming language on both sides of HTTP often appeals to a developers visceral sense of elegance, or tidiness, even though it this alone inherently solves no existing problems.

2. It's powered by Googles V8 engine, which means people already associate it with this "super fast JIT" thing that lives in their favourite browser. It must be efficient, right?

3. The crowned alternative is PHP which is slowly becoming Java and alienating, with no disrespect to anyone intended, the less experienced, the "let's just hack a script together" crowd.

Re: A Haskell Programmer Tries to Learn Racket

#18

Post by supergauntlet » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 2:47 AM UTC

beefsack wrote: post #13

gamegoblin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would definitely watch a video series in which an experienced and talented programmer tried out various programming languages for an hour and gave first impressions, comparisons, etc as they hacked something together during the video.

The idea of a twitch.tv stream sounds interesting, with viewers throwing small problems at the coder to solve as they fumble around with a new language.

In this vein I've been pondering doing a livestream of a LFS install for a while, just for funsies. I wonder if anyone would actually watch it.

Re: A Haskell Programmer Tries to Learn Racket

#19

Post by pera » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 2:59 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #11

gaigepr wrote: post #3

"...but nothing beyond that. As long as Node.js exists in this world, I can't truly hate anything else." I found this hilarious. I am also rather underwhelmed (to be nice) with Nodejs and a little bothered at its wide adoption. I have also been learning racket recently; my formal language and functional programming class uses it. I had some previous experience with common lisp but the raw nature of scheme still pleas…

I keep flipping back and forth, thinking I don't get it, then thinking others don't get it. Single-threaded JS with callbacks. OK? What am I missing? The only thing Node has going for it is a lot of networking libraries. It's not fast, the async style leads to callback hell, JS is a terrible language, and their package management system is slow and bloated (or at least the packages are)[1]. Yet people think it's some…

V8 vs Racket: http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?te...

Re: A Haskell Programmer Tries to Learn Racket

#20

Post by tel » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 3:02 AM UTC

nly wrote: post #17

MichaelGG wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep flipping back and forth, thinking I don't get it, then thinking others don't get it. Single-threaded JS with callbacks. OK? What am I missing? The only thing Node has going for it is a lot of networking libraries. It's not fast, the async style leads to callback hell, JS is a terrible language, and their package management system is slow and bloated (or at least the packages are)[1]. Yet people think it's some…

My theories: 1. Using the same programming language on both sides of HTTP often appeals to a developers visceral sense of elegance, or tidiness, even though it this alone inherently solves no existing problems. 2. It's powered by Googles V8 engine, which means people already associate it with this "super fast JIT" thing that lives in their favourite browser. It must be efficient, right? 3. The crowned alternative is…

1. There is a concrete advantage of shared code.