[Haskell-cafe] I read somewhere that for 90% of a wide class of computing problems, you only need 10% of the source code in Haskell, that you would in an imperative language.

[Jason Dagit]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 5:24 PM, Casey Hawthorne <caseyh at istar.ca> wrote:

> I read somewhere that for 90% of a wide class of computing problems,
> you only need 10% of the source code in Haskell, that you would in an
> imperative language.
>
> If this is true, it needs to be pushed.
>
> And if by changing a few lines of source code one can develop a whole
> family of similar applications, that needs to be pushed, also.
>

If you look through the archives here and elsewhere on the net, I think
you'll see that technical superiority isn't the driving force for language
adoption.  It can help, but other factors seem to play a more significant
role, usually dependent on context in which the languages became popular.
At times it can seem like luck, but then I'm reminded of what Louis Pasteur
said about luck and prepared minds.

It is good that you're talking about Haskell though.  Continue to discuss it
with your peers and show them fun and cool things you've written using
Haskell.  I think this is more compelling for the uninitiated than
statements about perceived technical power of the language.  I've heard
people explain this as, "showing is better than telling."

Cheers,
Jason
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