[Haskell-cafe] FW: Haskell

[Dan Weston]

This one's easy to answer:

When I studied Scheme, I did not have an uncontrollable urge to pore 
through arcane papers trying to find out what the heck a natural 
transformation was, or a Kleisli arrow, or wonder how you can download 
Theorems for Free instead of having to pay for them, or see if I really 
could write a program only in point-free fashion. Nor did I use to take 
perfectly working code and refactor it until it cried for mercy, and 
then stay awake wondering if there was some abstraction out there I was 
missing that would really make it sing.

You can debate the role of Haskell as a programming language per se, but 
when it comes to consciousness-raising, the jury is in...Haskell is my 
drug of choice!

Dan

Simon Peyton-Jones wrote:
> Dear Haskell Cafe members
> 
> Here's an open-ended question about Haskell vs Scheme.  Don't forget to cc Douglas in your replies; he may not be on this list (yet)!
> 
> Simon
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. Gregor [mailto:kerrangster at gmail.com]
> Sent: 30 March 2008 07:58
> To: Simon Peyton-Jones
> Subject: Haskell
> 
> Hello,
> 
> In your most humble opinion, what's the difference between Haskell and
> Scheme?  What does Haskell achieve that Scheme does not?  Is the choice less
> to do with the language, and more to do with the compiler?  Haskell is a
> pure functional programming language; whereas Scheme is a functional
> language, does the word "pure" set Haskell that much apart from Scheme?  I
> enjoy Haskell.  I enjoy reading your papers on parallelism using Haskell.
> How can one answer the question--why choose Haskell over Scheme?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Douglas
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Haskell-Cafe mailing list
> Haskell-Cafe at haskell.org
> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
> 
>