[Haskell-cafe] Re: Hoogle and Network.Socket

[John A. De Goes]

On Feb 25, 2009, at 7:49 PM, Achim Schneider wrote:
> "John A. De Goes" <john at n-brain.net> wrote:
>
>> The problem is that PL research is probably not going to stop
>> evolving in our lifetimes. Yes, that research needs a venue, but why
>> should it be Haskell? Haskell is a good language and it's time to
>> start benefiting from the research that's already gone into it. That
>> means some tradeoffs.
>>
> Why shouldn't it be Haskell?

More, why *can't* it be Haskell. Haskell is already constrained by  
backwards compatibility, which limits future directions. Partial  
functions and dependent typing do not seem to play well together, for  
instance.

Moreover, look at the packages being uploaded to Hackage: they're  
almost all trying to do useful stuff. The direction of Haskell has  
already changed, and I don't see it reverting to its old course.

> Not really, look at e.g. type families, which give you much of the
> power dependently typed languages give you while saying "nah, not yet"
> to the question of how to deal with non-terminating typechecking.

*Some*, not *much*, and there are dependently typed languages that  
have guaranteed terminating type checking.

> About the H' progress... It's hard to tell how many drops are needed  
> to
> make a bucket overflow, especially if you've got no idea what the
> bucket looks like. What certainly isn't happening is people taking a
> house, trying to overflow a badly leaking bucket.

As far as I know, H' was supposed to be completed many years ago.  
Likely, it won't be completed for many more years. H2 is probably more  
than a decade away, if it happens at all.

Regards,

John A. De Goes
N-BRAIN, Inc.
The Evolution of Collaboration

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