[Haskell-beginners] general observation about programming

[driemer.riemer at gmail.com]

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> On Feb 26, 2016, at 02:55, Mike Pentney <mike.pentney at physics.org> wrote:
> 
> As a newbie, something I dislike about Haskell is the use of infix operators like <||> which are unpronouncable and therefore (if you don't happen to know the notation the symbol is based on) are more or less meaningless.
> 
> And Haskellers often seem to prefer 1 and 2 character variable names, which again convey little or no information.
> 
> And don't get me started on point-free code...!
> 
> N.B. I am not trying to start a flame war, these are just comments from my experience of trying to get beyond text-book examples and start using Haskell libraries and trying to learn from open source code. In general I find idiomatic Haskell hard to understand, and for me this is a barrier to using Haskell for real projects. Maybe someday I'll have learnt enough to get past this problem, but as the language and libraries seem to evolve quickly, I have my doubts...
> 
> 
>> On 25/02/16 19:19, Jeffrey Brown wrote:
>> Something I like about functional programming is how it interfaces with natural language.
>> Haskell, somehow to a greater extent than other languages, encourages me to divide functions
>> into one or two-liners. Each has a type signature that means something in English. Further, each
>> gives you the opportunity to choose a good name for the function and its arguments. After doing
>> those things, the function is much easier to write, and much easier to read -- so much so that
>> often you don't have to read the function body at all, just the type signature, function name
>> and argument names.
>> 
>> On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 8:17 AM, Dudley Brooks <dbrooks at runforyourlife.org
>> <mailto:dbrooks at runforyourlife.org>> wrote:
>> 
>>    Ages and ages ago I saw this advice about programming:
>> 
>>    Q:  "What's the best language for a programmer to know?"
>> 
>>    A:  "English" (or whatever your native language is)
>> 
>>    -- Dudley
>> 
>> 
>>>    On 2/24/16 4:03 PM, Dennis Raddle wrote:
>>> 
>>>    This is more about programming in general than Haskell, although Haskellers probably know
>>>    it well.
>>> 
>>>    I don't claim to have expert knowledge on this, but I'm gradually getting better at it.
>>> 
>>>    When I set out to write a program, or refactor a program, or modify a program, it helps to
>>>    set out my thinking in a clear way. And how I make it clear is to document my thoughts.
>>> 
>>>    An outline is one good way to organize thoughts and is probably my main tool. But good
>>>    English prose is also helpful.
>>> 
>>>    The key factor is "editing." In what sense do I mean that? Good writers do it, and the
>>>    Haskell documentation does it. I mean (1) brevity and (2) good flow. To achieve brevity,
>>>    you must think about the essence of each statement and trim away the unnecessary stuff.
>>>    Good flow refers to how the document builds up and modifies your concepts as you read it.
>>>    A document can actually mirror an effective learning process, or influence and change your
>>>    process.
>>> 
>>>    I work with my documentation, making several editing passes. By the time I'm done, I am in
>>>    a great position to write a concise and flexible program.
>>> 
>>>    It's interesting that not only is Haskell a concise language, but the Haskell library
>>>    documentation is concise. Contrast that with the Python documentation which often wanders
>>>    about into areas that are irrelevant--it could easily be cut into one third its present size.
>>> 
>>>    Mike
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Jeffrey Benjamin Brown
>> 
>> 
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