[Haskell-cafe] Re: Haskell Logo write-in candidate

[Achim Schneider]

Jon Fairbairn <jon.fairbairn at cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> That's where that particular design falls down. >>= is an
> ugly symbol in the first place, and while the pun with a
> lambda in the middle provides some intellectual
> satisfaction, it doesn't outweigh the fussiness of its shape
> or the irrelevant associations. I hadn't thought of Amtrak,
> but it made me think of the flags of Mozambique and South
> Africa.
>
I had to google for Amtrak, I didn't know they even existed. I did know
that Mozambique and South Africa exist, and googling up their flags I
discovered that there are as many resemblances to lambda-bind as there
are to the Logo to the Deutsche Bank. Amtrak looks wholly different to
me: It doesn't even have straight lines, and it's 3d.

:: might be truly Haskell in the sense that everybody else uses
plain :, but I don't want Haskell to be associated with squareness, and
typing, by itself, is hardly a distinguishing property of Haskell.
Furthermore, squares are inherently unstable. Choosing some form of a
lambda would be the equivalent of a resistance group choosing a fist as
logo: It's been done way to often.

Uhh.... we could use -><- . "Implies do-notation." 

Lambda-bind ISN'T UGLY. I wouldn't only wear it as a t-shirt, I'd even
paint it on a spaceship. If it's busy, then too are the Windoze and Sun
logos, and if non-business is the sole criterion, we should go with a
blank logo, saying "Haskell is the Zen of Programming".

I bet there are some design-experienced people involved in all this,
there are way too many well-balanced proposals on the logo list for this
not to be true: They just didn't out themselves explicitely.


Some time ago, my proposal was to do two votes: First choose the logo,
then colour scheme and layout with text etc. Right now, doing three
seems wiser: The current, first one to weed out a bulk of unpopular
logos, the second to choose one of the popular ones after we've made up
our minds about what those logos signify, and finally the third,
colour/layout vote. Condorcet voting _should_ actually get rid of the
need for the second one, but then, as always, people start to notice
that they want to go on a train only after it has left the station.
Furthermore, some people seem to be of the oppinion that choosing a
couple of favourites and moving them to the top involves dealing with
100+ options, which it of course does, but doesn't. Ignorance is
Strength.


Voting for a slogan would be a good Idea, too. There's the quite old
"We put the funk in function", "pure - lazy - fun", "pure - lazy -
fun(ctional) "purely functional" (functionally pure? pure
functionality?), "being lazy with class", "warm and fuzzy", "bind the
real world", "YEEEAAAHH", "Freedom from state", "Just Haskell", and
probably a couple of others.


Then there's the mascot topic: We could have Monica Monad sitting on
a lamda-bind, a sloth hanging from it... It makes the whole thing more
alive, and can be left out at small scales and on space ships. Maybe we
can bribe Tux with some fish, he's on forced vacation right now.


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