[Haskell-cafe] Aim Of Haskell

Tomasz Zielonka tomasz.zielonka at gmail.com
Fri Dec 15 09:42:06 EST 2006


Hello!

On Fri, Dec 15, 2006 at 01:14:38PM -0000, Neil Bartlett wrote:
> Just that it would be great to hear more about the mundane
> aspects of programming occasionally. Like, how exactly do I read from a
> relational database with Haskell? Or process an XML file? Or build an
> event-driven GUI? And crucially, why does Haskell do those things better
> than Java, or C#, or Ruby? If somebody could write some articles on those
> subjects,

You seem to assume no such articles exist, which is wrong. It doesn't
take too much searching to find them - I just googled for "haskell gui",
"haskell xml", "haskell database" and got very relevent links at the
top.

Don't expect you'll find those articles on your doorstep together
with a milk bottle ;-) There are so many topics connected with Haskell
that it wouldn't be possible to link them directly from the start page
of http://www.haskell.org/.

Also, writing articles about the superiority of Haskell over Java, C#,
etc. could be seen as (or simply be) chauvinism and arrogance, don't you
think? Especially if written by someone like me, who knows Haskell much
better than all those languages (so can't program *well* in those
languages). Well, you can try with the "great programming language
shootout", where many people contribute solutions for the same problems
in many languages.

> and get them up on popular websites like Digg or Reddit, this
> would be far more helpful than yet another monad tutorial.

Are you sure it's a good idea to bomb uninterested people with Haskell
all the time. Something to get them interested - sure. But when they
are interested, I believe they can find what they want mostly on their
own.

Of course it's good to make the search easier, but it's impossible to
eliminate it completely.

> The Haskell web server that Simon Peyton-Jones et al described in their
> paper would be a great example. But where's the download?

Let me stress this: HWS is an *exception*. It's the only Haskell related
thing that I had trouble to find.

> I think Haskell has huge potential to improve mainstream programming, if
> it could only catch on a bit.

Define "a bit". According to my definition, it already happened :-)

> I don't know how to make that happen, unfortunately

Don't start a crusade to convert the people - history shows that such
enterprises most often have fatal outcomes.

> But whatever Haskell needs, it's not getting at the moment.

Honestly, I don't see that. To me it seems that everything is
going nicely: the language is used, the community is alive,
compilers are getting better, libraries are getting better are
more numerous, the number of users seems to be increasing. What is the
problem?

Try to convince me that something is wrong ;-)

(I can think of some problems, but I am *not sure* we should be afraid
of them).

Best regards
Tomasz


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