[Haskell-cafe] Learning Haskell

[Lemmih]

On 12/6/05, Donn Cave <donn at drizzle.com> wrote:
> Quoth Jimmie Houchin <jhouchin at cableone.net>:
> ...
> | Haskell looks like a very interesting language. I am only so-so with
> | Python and I thought that maybe if instead of spending sufficient time
> | to get proficient with Python, I could invest a similar time (more or
> | less) and get reasonably (pragmatically speaking) proficient with
> | Haskell. I know I may never understand the theory and maths behind the
> | design, but I believe I can appreciate the design and be a decent user
> | of the tools it provides.
>
> I'm coming from a similar background, Python early adopter (well, they
> do have something in common!  Just something sort of trivial.) and no
> great math background.
>
> I find Haskell MUCH more mentally rigorous.  I don't think that's just
> because I have previously been living in "imperative" land, it's because
> Haskell gets far more abstract.  I have lately been thinking I might
> see if I can achieve a clear understanding of StateT.  Not in any
> theoretical or mathematical sense, just want to understand how it goes
> together where honestly right now it seems kind of like magic.  Not
> complaining, there could be worse things than magic like that, but
> I'm just saying our mathematical ignorance doesn't excuse us from some
> mental heavy lifting that doesn't compare to anything in Python.
>
> Then there are performance issues with Haskell that don't come up in
> other languages.  I have tried to do things like analyze big text files
> with Haskell and given up, because I could not figure out how to get
> within an order of magnitude of reasonable completion time.  I still
> think it's possible, though maybe not with standard String type, but
> anyway it's something to look out for.

You might wanna have a look at Don's FastPackedString library:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~dons/fps.html

> | I am also hoping to use it for web development.
>
> Wonder how `links' is coming along.  (Hope they figured out a better
> name, anyway.)

Got an url for the project?

--
Friendly,
  Lemmih