[Haskell-cafe] help me evangelize haskell.

[Ben Lippmeier]

On 05/09/2010, at 2:38 AM, Michael Litchard wrote:

> I'll be starting a new job soon as systems tool guy. The shop is a
> perl shop as far as internal automation tasks go. But I am fortunate
> to not be working with bigots. If they see a better way, they'll take
> to it. So please give me your best arguments in favor of using haskell
> for task automation instead of perl, or awk or any of those scripting
> lanugages.

Try to avoid religious arguments like "by using Perl you're living in a state of sin", and focus on "look how much easier it is to do X in Haskell". 

Grandiose, hand-wavy assertions like "strong typing leads to shorter development times and more reliable software" don't work on people that haven't already been there and done that. When you try to ram something down someone's throat they tend to resist. However, if you can provide something tasty and appealing they'll eat it themselves. Write a nice program, show it to your Perl programmer, and if they also think it's nice -- then you've already won.

Ben.