[Haskell-cafe] Re: How Can Haskell Be Saved?

[Richard O'Keefe]

On Dec 14, 2009, at 6:16 AM, John D. Earle wrote:

> I am already familiar with SUA and it doesn't make Windows POSIX  
> complaint in a way that I would call genuine.

I grant you that certain aspects of Windows POSIX support have earned
it the "DeathStation 9000" label, but it's genuine enough to have
earned this claim in the Wikipedia entry for POSIX:
	"Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX 3.5 – enables
 >>>	 full POSIX compliance
	 for certain Microsoft Windows products."
I also grant you that the Microsoft POSIX subsystem only supported
the 1990 version of POSIX and has been described as "close to useless".
But of SUA it has been said "As of 2004, server versions of Windows have
a POSIX subsystem that supports threads, signals, sockets, and shared
memory, less than twenty years after the standard was finalized, and
only a little over a decade after Microsoft began advertising POSIX
compliance."

> It was something I evaluated. There was no point in your mentioning  
> that it exists unless you had ulterior motives.

"ulterior: being intentionally concealed so as to deceive".

Nope.  You said that Apple and Microsoft hadn't gone down the POSIX  
line.
I pointed out that current MacOS _is_ a Unix; until today I've relied on
Single Unix Specification version 3 documents to guide my Mac  
programming
which makes it close enough for me.  Today I downloaded the SUSv4 spec
(POSIX 2008).  I also pointed out that Windows NT had a fully compliant
POSIX subsystem, by design, and that Microsoft cared at least enough
about POSIX support to buy the company that made what is now SUA.
For that matter, no version of Linux, no version of BSD, and no version
of OpenSolaris is certified POSIX-compliant (open source projects change
too fast for certification to be cheap).

Microsoft can't "go the POSIX route" exclusively without killing their
cash cow.  VMS was the first POSIX-certified system, but that didn't
mean DEC or VMS users abandoning VMS.  zOS is POSIX-compliant, but I
expect most sites running zOS have no intention of switching, and IBM
have no intention of making them.

>
> It isn't what they are telling you that matters; it is what they are  
> not telling you. It is called a half truth. If Haskell wants to be  
> saved, it has got to give up the lying.

What on earth is Haskell lying about?

What does Haskell need to be saved from?
(Its growing popularity and mushrooming library?)