[Haskell-cafe] Re: A rant against the blurb on the Haskell front page

[Vo Minh Thu]

2010/10/18 DavidA <polyomino at f2s.com>:
> Ketil Malde <ketil <at> malde.org> writes:
>
>>
>> Don Stewart <dons <at> galois.com> writes:
>>
>> >> Good start, if only the "advanced" were replaced with something more
>> >> characteristic, like "lazy", or "statically typed". Which, BTW, both do not
>>
>> > "lazy" and "statically typed" don't mean much to other people. They are
>> > buzz words that mean nothing to many people.
>>
>> But they /are/ defining characteristics of the language, still.  I think
>> they should be mentioned, ideally as links to separate pages (or
>> pop-ups or a "live" sidebar?) that explain what they mean, and why you'd
>> want them.
>>
>> -k
>
> I agree that it is important to highlight the features that are characteristic
> of the language. However, I would add that "statically typed" is a turn-off for
> some people, so I think it is important to add "with type inference".

Every once in a while, a discussion about the top-level text on
Haskell.org pops in this list. Without paying much attention to this
thread, and without digging the older threads, it occurs to me that
different people have very different opinion on this subject. I think
this is not a problem at all, because of the following thought:

When someone is interested enough in a programming language to land on
its homepage (i.e. haskell.org here), that someone has enough
resources at her disposal to make a somewhat informed choice, and
those resources can't be only a top-level text on the homepage.

This means if there are a few obscure words, they can digg their
meaning on their own (which is quite simple: there is a search bar on
the haskell.org site, some of those words are links, they are probably
viewing the site through a browser that makes it easy to search
through google or another search engine).

I have learned a few language and I simply can't remember a single
occurence where I had some interest in a language and simply decided
to learn it or not based on the top level text of its community
homepage.

All this means a great things: if you find Haskell or learning it
valuable, you can blog about it, give your personal spin to it. People
interested in Haskell will find your opinion and make a more richly
informed choice.

Cheers,
Thu