[Haskell-cafe] Non-technical Haskell question

[Tomasz Zielonka]

On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 10:05:21AM -0500, Jason Bailey wrote:
> I don't think you can really compare Haskell with the C's. C/C++, for 
> the time being, is the basis of most low level api's. They don't really 
> need a large standard library because their packages  are available 
> everywhere and are easily installed and updated.

Those languages have their own problems, bigger problems if you ask me.

That C++ doesn't need a large standard library is not really true -
what's Boost if not a large C++ quasi-standard library?

> Haskell has been around for quite a while, longer then Java or Python, 
> and almost as long as Perl. Yet it doesn't have half the inherent 
> library functionality that these other languages have. I find it 
> curious. I like Haskell and I think it has a lot of promise. I just 
> don't see why this problem exists.

What's funny (and curious) is that it's still easier for me to write any given
program in Haskell than in those "mature" languages with tons of libraries. I
don't want to find, learn and rely on hundreds of libraries. I want a powerful,
expressive language, which makes half of these libraries unnecessary and allows
me to easily create and use my own libraries. I want to learn and use powerful
programming techniques, learn a couple of solid, well designed libraries, which
I can understand from both sides, interface and implementation, to be able to
fix them, when it is necessary. That's why I choose Haskell, not Java or
Python.

Best regards,
Tomasz