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

[Jonathan Cast]

On Thu, 2009-02-26 at 06:30 -0700, John A. De Goes wrote:
> 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.

Here's to hoping it doesn't.  Practical languages, when they change,
*never* improve.  And that's going from study (although not experience!)
of 40 years of history.

jcc