[Haskell-cafe] FW: Haskell

[Loup Vaillant]

2008/4/1, Bulat Ziganshin <bulat.ziganshin at gmail.com>:
> Hello Simon,
>
>
>  Tuesday, April 1, 2008, 2:18:25 PM, you wrote:
>
>  > How can one answer the question--why choose Haskell over Scheme?
>
>
> 1. static typing with type inference - imho, must-be for production
>  code development. as many haskellers said, once compiler accept your
>  program, you may be 95% sure that it contains no bugs. just try it!
>
>  2. lazy evaluation - reduces complexity of language. in particular,
>  all control structures are usual functions while in scheme they are
>  macros
>
>  3. great, terse syntax. actually, the best syntax among several
>  dozens of languages i know
>
>  4. type classes machinery, together with type inference, means that
>  code for dealing with complex data types (say, serialization) is
>  generated on the fly and compiled right down to machine code

In my opinion, (1) and (3), as they are stated, are a bit dangerous if
you want to convince a lisper: they represent two long standing
religious wars.

  About (3), I see a trade-off: a rich syntax is great as long as we
don't need macros. Thanks to lazy evaluation and monads, we rarely
need macros in Haskell, even when writing DSLs. Sometimes, however, we
do need macros (remember the arrow notation, whose need was at some
time unforeseen).
  I think the only way we could compare the two is to make a
s-expression syntax for Haskell, add macros to it (either hygienic, or
with some kind of gensym), and (re)write some programs in both
syntaxes. I bet it would be very difficult (if not impossible) to
eliminate the trade-off.

  About (1), In most (if not all) dynamic vs static debate, the
dynamic camp argues that the safety brought by a static type system
comes at the price of lost flexibility. If we compare duck-typing and
Hindley-Milner, they are right: heterogeneous collections are at best
clumsy in Hindley-Milner, and overloading is near impossible.
  Thanks to some geniuses (could someone name them?), we have type
classes and higher order types in Haskell (and even more). These two
features eliminate most (if not all) need for a dynamic type system.

  About (4), I think type classes shines even more on simple and
mundane stuff. No more clumsy "+" for ints and "+." for floats. No
more passing around the "compare" fucntion. No more "should I return a
Maybe type or throw an exception?" (monads can delay this question).
No more <whatever I forgot>.
  For more impressive stuff, I think quick-check is a great example.

About (2), I'm clueless. The consequences of lazy evaluation are so
far-reaching I wouldn't dare entering the "Lazy vs Strict" debate.

Loup