[Haskell-cafe] Re: statep haskell-lang [was: Re: Hoogle and Network.Socket]

[Jonathan Cast]

On Thu, 2009-02-26 at 13:25 -0700, John A. De Goes wrote:
> No, I hate C and will never use it again in my entire life unless  
> forced to at the point of a gun.

Why?  Its libraries are far better, its editors are far better [1], its
compilers are far better, its tool support is far better, it's
incomparably superior in every possible way to Haskell.

Except the relatively narrow criterion of the *language itself*.  Maybe
making languages better is a worthwile pursuit, then?  Or do you still
think languages should be frozen in time[2] so the tools, compilers,
editors, libraries, etc. can undergo vast improvements?

jcc

[1] They're not; IDEs are for losers
[2] For the record: I'd be content to see a frozen production language,
like Haskell, frozen in time; as long there's a credible other
evolveable language --- preferably one with zero backward-compatibility
requirements w.r.t. Haskell 98 or current or past GHC.  Re-designing a
purely function research language from the ground up would be neat ---
but then it wouldn't be Haskell at all, and I wouldn't use Haskell, I'd
use the new language.  If I thought I could realistically leave the
Haskell community, I wouldn't be nearly so opposed to Haskell's
continued slide into practicality.