[Haskell-cafe] Very freaky

[Andrew Coppin]

Jim Burton wrote:
> Andrew Coppin wrote:
>   
>> The other downside is that you end up with a world where most of the 
>> "tools" are in fact one-man research projects or small toys.
>>
>> There are a few good, powerful, useful things out there. (GHC and Parsec 
>> immediately spring to mind.) But there's also a vast number of really 
>> tiny projects which don't seem to be terrifically well supported. Kind 
>> of makes me sad; Haskell seems almost doomed to be a language with 
>> fantastic potential, but little real-world traction.
>>     
> AFAIK Haskell wasn't designed for real-world traction in the first place,
> but as a way of consolidating FP research efforts onto one platform, so in
> that sense it's a resounding success rather than "doomed". It also seems to
> have gained some traction, and we know that FP can be an eminently practical
> real-world secret weapon, so the tools you're waiting for someone else to
> write could well be on their way. At the same time, the only evidence for
> this at the moment is a lot of blogs, O'Reilly investing in a book and
> Eternal September on haskell-cafe. If you want a language with a bigger user
> base or that is less confusing, there are plenty to choose from.
>   

The *language* I love. Haskell is usually a joy to program with.

The lack of real-world traction can be very frustrating though. It's 
like I just found the perfect programming language, and I can't really 
use it for very much... :-(