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

[Achim Schneider]

"John A. De Goes" <john at n-brain.net> wrote:

> Are you saying has been no progress since K&R C in the number of  
> libraries available to C programmers?
>
I never did, I asked you to compare usability. If you want it in plain
English, library semantics still suck, hell, there isn't even name
spacing.

> And that C programmers still have to edit files with vi and compile
> and link by specifying all files on the command-line?
>
No, we still use some kind of make, and, believe it or not, I've
written myself an omakefile that allows you to compile C with the same
ease as ghc --make compiles Haskell. It makes many assumptions about
the usage of imports, though: Such power will always be hackish in
C-land.

I am offended by the demeaning way you portray vi.

> You may disagree, but the evidence points in the opposite direction.  
> There are tens of thousands of robust C libraries available to suit  
> any particular programming need. Many of Haskell's own libraries are  
> based on C versions. 
>
Semantic suckage tends to collect around those libraries that aren't
pure Haskell, XHB has proven itself able to crash a _very_ mature piece
of C software, the X server. You won't have to search long for security
advisories exposing flaws in virtually every of those libraries,
usually caused by fundamental flaws of the language. Your point?

> Tool support for the C language (not for some successor you might
> think would exist if the language continued evolving) can detect
> memory leaks, detect memory overwrites, apply dozens of automatic
> refactorings to C large-scale C programs, etc.
> 
Hacks, as I said. None of them are able to address the fundamental
problems.

> Library and tool support for the C language is light years beyond  
> Haskell. It wouldn't be there if we had been through 20 iterations
> of C each completely breaking backward compatibility.
> 
It wouldn't be there if C was younger than Haskell, either, but still
suck the same.


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