[Haskell-cafe] Re: What *not* to use Haskell for

Bulat Ziganshin bulat.ziganshin at gmail.com
Tue Nov 11 09:13:26 EST 2008


Hello Jefferson,

Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 4:12:40 PM, you wrote:

may be i doesn't understand something but why c#, java, delphi, visual
basic, perl, python, ruby or even ml better than c++?

symbol names in C++ are easily predictable with wrapper using extern
"C". i think that you just not tried to write warppers to code in
other languages - the same problems are everywhere


> Actually, one language you mention there *is* worse than the others
> for writing wrappable library code: C++.  Admittedly, they've got a
> Python interface now via boost, but the main problem with writing
> wrappable C++ code is the template system and the inheritence systems
> getting in the way.  Symbol names aren't predictable and not
> standardized, so it becomes impossible to write a portable system for
> finding and binding to functions in a library.  I've not yet found a
> good way to do it in FFI code, and I would love to, as one library in
> particular I hold near and dear -- OpenSceneGraph -- is entirely
> written in C++.

> -- Jeff

> On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 6:35 AM, Bulat Ziganshin
> <bulat.ziganshin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello Mauricio,
>>
>> Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 2:26:21 PM, you wrote:
>>
>> imho, Haskell isn't worse here than any other compiled language - C++,
>> ML, Eiffel and beter tnan Java or C#.every language has its own object
>> model and GC. the only ay is to provide C-typed interfaces between
>> languages (or use COM, IDL and other API-describing languages)
>>
>>> I think Haskell is not nice to write general purpouse libraries
>>> that could be easily and completly wrapped by other languages.
>>> You can wrap gtk, sqlite3, gsl, opengl etc., but you can't write
>>> python bindings for Data.Graph.
>>
>>> But, then, if you claim there's nothing else Haskell can't do,
>>> what do you need those bindings for ? :)
>>
>>> Best,
>>> Mauricio
>>
>>>> Hi everyone
>>>>
>>>> So I should clarify I'm not a troll and do "see the Haskell light". But
>>>> one thing I can never answer when preaching to others is "what does
>>>> Haskell not do well?"
>>>>
>>>> Usually I'll avoid then question and explain that it is a 'complete'
>>>> language and we do have more than enough libraries to make it useful and
>>>> productive. But I'd be keen to know if people have any anecdotes,
>>>> ideally ones which can subsequently be twisted into an argument for
>>>> Haskell ;)
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Dave
>>
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>>
>> --
>> Best regards,
>>  Bulat                            mailto:Bulat.Ziganshin at gmail.com
>>
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-- 
Best regards,
 Bulat                            mailto:Bulat.Ziganshin at gmail.com



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