[Haskell-cafe] IO is a bad example for Monads

[Lennart Augustsson]

And more power to those who are pursuing the vision!
But in the mean time I need to read and write files, start up external
programs, call Excel through FFI, etc, etc.
And there's no clever API for that yet, only IO.  And I'd rather do IO in
Haskell than in C++.

I share the vision, though.  I'm just not pursuing it at the moment.

  -- Lennart


On Dec 11, 2007 6:02 PM, Conal Elliott <conal at conal.net> wrote:

>
> > This is at odds with the notion, popular on this list and other haskell
> forums, that pure functional programming is the future.
>
> Perhaps a nit-pick, but I don't think we're talking about *pure*
> functional programming.  I think we're talking about a mixture of functional
> and imperative programming in a functional language.  Haskell offers a
> cleaner separation between the two than, say, Scheme or ML.  The idea of
> pure functional programming (no explicit IO) for getting real things done is
> much more of a lunatic fringe vision, and I'm not sure there are many of us
> left pursuing that vision.
>
>   - Conal
>
>
>
> On Dec 11, 2007 9:34 AM, Tim Newsham <newsham at lava.net> wrote:
>
> > I haven't been following this thread closely, but would it be rude to
> > suggest
> > > that someone who doesn't want to put the effort into learning the
> > (admittedly
> > > difficult) concepts that Haskell embodies shouldn't be using the
> > language?
> > > Haskell was never intended to be The Next Big Popular Language.  It
> > was
> > > intended to be a purely functional language for people who want to use
> > purely
> > > functional languages and who are willing to learn new concepts if it
> > enables
> > > them to program in that  style.
> >
> > This is at odds with the notion, popular on this list and other
> > haskell forums, that pure functional programming is the future.
> >
> > Why is it that every time the topic of teaching basic concepts in
> > an easier way comes up there are always two or three replies that
> > say "should we bother?  lets filter out the idiots?"  These are
> > pointless and counterproductive.  Whether or not you like the idea
> > of lesser entities sullying your private, pure, functional programming
> > language, there are going to be a lot more people learning this
> > language, and there will be people trying to make it easier for them
> > to learn it.
> >
> > > whatever.  That said, of course we should strive to have better
> > teaching
> > > materials, but there are a number of good IO/monad tutorials on the
> > web.
> > [...]
> > > because it enables us to write programs more effectively (in many
> > cases, at
> > > least) than we can in other languages, but the learning curve is steep
> > --
> > > there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
> >
> > Many of the best resources for learning Haskell are still academic
> > papers published by language researchers.   We've still got a long
> > long way to go...  Sure there's no shortcut to learning difficult
> > concepts, but right now its more of a nature hike than a freeway...
> >
> > > Mike
> >
> > Tim Newsham
> > http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/ <http://www.thenewsh.com/%7Enewsham/>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Haskell-Cafe mailing list
> > Haskell-Cafe at haskell.org
> > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
> >
>
>
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>
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