[Haskell-cafe] Re: New slogan for haskell.org

[jerzy.karczmarczuk at info.unicaen.fr]

Yitzchak Gale writes: 

>>> Haskell was not the first to have lazy lists, but Haskell
>>> was an important part of the inspiration for introducing
>>> them into Python.
> 
> Jerzy Karczmarczuk wrote:
>> Actually, I would *sincerely* like to see some reference proving that.
> 
> The Python Library Reference, "itertools" (section 6.5 in Python 2.5):
> "This module implements a number of iterator building blocks inspired
> by constructs from the Haskell and SML programming languages.
> Each has been recast in a form suitable for Python."

Yitz, we will not quarrel, after all, we belong to the same Haskell
mafia, but don't forget that itertools have been introduced in the
version 2.3! It contained 'cycle', 'chain', 'dropwhile', etc. Here,
I willingly sacrifice a cow to Haskell gods. But we were speaking about
map and filter, and this is 1994... So, perhaps some concrete references
 - if given - should be tested against the historical truth.
[Ohhh, my goodness... I realize that I am getting really old...] 

...
>> Give to Caesar...: It was Amrit Prem; one history page on WP says that
>> no specific mention of any Lisp heritage is mentioned in the release
>> notes at the time, so all speculations are still possible...
> 
> OK. (That is a quote from Wikipedia, yes?)

Yes. Partly. Indirectly. "All speculations" is mine. My source was here: 

http://www.python.org/search/hypermail/python-1994q2/0143.html 

> Look, I am not arguing that this pseudo-laziness
> is a central feature of Python, ... So I agree with others
> who wrote that pointing out beautiful
> Haskell-inspired or Haskell-like features in
> a person's current favorite language might be
> a good way to encourage that person to have a look
> at Haskell.

That is perfectly alright, and I assure you that I did my best to
popularize the language in my local environment. However... 

There *IS* one danger with hypes. Several people deeply buried within
other programming niches, accuse in permanence the Functionalists of
being sectarian. I think that we should be modest and simple. Haskell
is as any other language. Just a *very good* language. As such, it
inspired others, and also, I think, it was inspired by others. Don't
underline the "uniqueness" of the language. Notice that thanks to
Haskell the DrScheme has now a lazy module. (Unless Eli Barzilay denies
it...) But that laziness can be found in Snobol "unevaluated expressions"
and Icon co-expressions, and these preceded Haskell. (Although I doubt
that they influenced Haskell...) Nevertheless I think that it
is psychologically convenient to underline that potential new users will
find *many* familiar, or at least "venerable" concepts, only represented
differently. 

All the best. 

Jerzy Karczmarczuk