[Haskell-cafe] Haskell not ready for Foo [was: Re: Hypothetical Haskell job in New York]

[Donn Cave]

Quoth Robert Greayer <robgreayer at yahoo.com>:

> The Java reinventions largely exist because of the huge deployment-time
> benefits you get from pure-Java code (cross-platform portability of
> compiled (byte) code, dynamic loading of compiled code over a network,
> etc.).  Such reinventions are much less important for Haskell, since
> the typical deployment model for a Haskell program is much closer to
> that of a C program than a Java program or even a Python program.  

To me this argument can cut both ways.  To come back to the LDAP example,
Perl gets exactly this benefit from its natural implementation, compared
to Python's interface to C OpenLDAP - you don't have to install OpenLDAP,
eliminating a big nuisance for an interface that might have only a trivial
role in your application.  Perl is more portable in this particular respect,
because it can do LDAP on its own.

In general, I think it may be absurd to make general statements on this.
(Though I imagine one generally valid comparison we can make between Java
and Haskell libraries, is that Java's development was better funded.)

	Donn