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

[Miguel Mitrofanov]

Believe it or not, but I still edit Haskell sources with vi sometimes.  
My favorite Emacs doesn't work on iPhone.

On 26 Feb 2009, at 23:18, John A. De Goes wrote:

>
> Are you saying has been no progress since K&R C in the number of  
> libraries available to C programmers? And that C programmers still  
> have to edit files with vi and compile and link by specifying all  
> files on the command-line?
>
> 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. 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Regards,
>
> John A. De Goes
> N-BRAIN, Inc.
> The Evolution of Collaboration
>
> http://www.n-brain.net    |    877-376-2724 x 101
>
> On Feb 26, 2009, at 1:08 PM, Achim Schneider wrote:
>
>> "John A. De Goes" <john at n-brain.net> wrote:
>>
>>> What do you mean by "progress"? I noted before that there are
>>> tradeoffs. Constraining the evolution of the language in backward
>>> compatible ways leads to substantial improvements in tools,
>>> libraries, and the speed of compiled code. That's progress in  
>>> several
>>> dimensions -- just not along the dimension of "language".
>>>
>> I disagree. Backwards compatibility can be the very reason no
>> progress _can_ be made in the areas you mention. The C toolchain was
>> and is a mess for anything but small, uniform, single-platform
>> programs, things like valgrind of course outperform plain lint in a
>> variety of ways, but are still hacks around the language's major  
>> flaws
>> (And I'm speaking as a C-fan, here). Further breakthroughs in C
>> compiler technology will require stalin-like brute force and library
>> support... well, did you ever use yacc or libxml and compared them to
>> Haskell solutions?
>>
>> Java generics are broken by design, for the questionable benefit of
>> backwards compatibility. Leave those Bad Decisions to language
>> communities who don't care about Doing It Right. "Right" being a
>> technological measure here, not how well politics sell to  
>> accountants.
>>
>> -- 
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