[Haskell-cafe] Re: Non-technical Haskell question

[Aaron Denney]

On Tue, Dec 07, 2004 at 01:58:59PM -0500, Paul Hudak wrote:
> Aaron Denney wrote:
> >I'd rather it didn't until a few warts were fixed.  OTOH, it may be too
> >late already, barring a Haskell 2.
> 
> Does Python not have warts?  Or Pearl, or Java, or C#?  I don't think 
> that a few warts prevent a language from becoming a "success".

Of course not.  My point was not how to get Haskell to take off, but
that I'd rather one with fewer warts did than one with more.

A misfeature in a popular language sticks around forever.

I think Haskell is slowly accellerating, and will reach "widely known
about" status fairly soon.

> But you may be right that it is too late... Haskell is getting old! 
> Sometimes I think that for a language to "succeed" it must do so in its 
> infancy.

Perl didn't really take off until perl 4.  Java had a huge marketing
engine behind it.  Python did take off relatively quickly, though.

> Perhaps the thing to do is create a new language with a new name, but 
> base it entirely on Haskell's semantics, then equip it with just one 
> really good library to solve well just one important niche problem, and 
> see what happens.  If it is seen as a shiny new silver bullet in just 
> one niche area, it might take off like a rocket.

And it lets the biggest warts be fixed.

-- 
Aaron Denney
-><-