[Haskell-beginners] an observation about Haskell vs. Python

[Kim-Ee Yeoh]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 8:24 AM, David Hinkes <david.hinkes at gmail.com>
 wrote:

> I almost think of the unit tests as the compiler (does that make sense to
> anyone but me?).
>

Absolutely! There's also quickcheck, which is semi-automated fuzz testing.
All this contributes to greater awesomeness in every line of code.


-- Kim-Ee


On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 8:24 AM, David Hinkes <david.hinkes at gmail.com>wrote:

> With python (and any other non-compiled language for that matter) the unit
> testing is very important.  I almost think of the unit tests as the
> compiler (does that make sense to anyone but me?).
>
>  On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 3:15 PM, Dennis Raddle <dennis.raddle at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>  As a somewhat-newbie haskell user and longtime Python user, what I have
>> observed is this.
>>
>> Haskell creates compile-time error messages that are somewhat hard to
>> understand for beginners.
>>
>> Python (or any scripting language) creates run-time bugs that are hard to
>> understand.
>>
>> One reason for the weird (to a beginner) compile errors in Haskell is its
>> expressivity -- almost any sequence of identifiers could potentially mean
>> something, and if you make a mistake, the compiler is sure to find some
>> "weird" way to interpret it.
>>
>> But Python suffers from a similar problem -- it's not as expressive a
>> language, but it is very permissive, not insisting on type correctness,
>> order of arguments, or any of a number of things so that the programmer can
>> write a program that compiles with no errors -- but has strange run-time
>> bugs.
>>
>> I'll take Haskell. I'm a bit OCD about getting the bugs out of my
>> programs, and Python just opens up too many holes for me to relax with it.
>>
>> Dennis
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
> David Hinkes
>
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