F#

[MR K P SCHUPKE]

> but unfortunately some simple programming exercises can quickly turn
> into problems that require a PhD. to solve.

Of course you could say that the excersise is not actaully as simple
as you believe, and other languages will let you get away with stuff
you really shouldn't be doing.

A good example of this is threads. There are apparently very few programmers
that can do threads well, I heard of one survey that stated most programming
shops only have one 'threads expert' and problems inevitably get referred to
them. 

Haskell solves a lot of the problems you have in dealing nicely with threads
in other languages (no side effects - built in channels and MVars so no
visible mutexes). #

One of the biggest problems in software is dealing with complexity, so
anything that helps sort this out is a plus... 

Most large software projects are delivered late or not working due to 
complexity. I guess the person that wrote that article was thinking
about 'scripting' rather than programming (as in visual basic style
stuff) - Well thats my opinion at least...

	Keean.