[Haskell-cafe] Mathematics and Statistics libraries

[Tom Doris]

Hi Heinrich,

If we compare the GHCi experience with R or IPython, leaving aside any
GUIs, the help system they have at the repl level is just a lot more
intuitive and easy to use, and you get access to the full manual
entries. For example, compare what you see if you type :info sort into
GHCi versus ?sort in R. R gives you a view of the full docs for the
function, whereas in GHCi you just get the type signature.

I usually def a command to call out to ":!hoogle --info %", which
gives what you expect :info should. So, as is usually the case,
there's a solution in Haskell that matches the features in other
systems, but it's not the default and you have to invest effort
getting it set up right. This is fine for Haskell devs who do some
stats work, but it represents an offputtingly steep learning curve for
quants who are willing to learn a little Haskell but expect
(reasonably) some basic stuff like inline help to Just Work.

Tom

On 25 March 2012 08:26, Heinrich Apfelmus <apfelmus at quantentunnel.de> wrote:
> Tom Doris wrote:
>>
>>
>> If you're interested in UI work, ideally we'd have something similar
>> to RStudio as an environment, a simple set of windows encapsulating an
>> editor, a repl, a plotting panel and help/history, this sounds
>> superficial but it really has an impact when you're exploring a data
>> set and trying stuff out.
>
>
> Concerning UI, the following project suggestion aims to give GHCi a web GUI
>
>  http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/summer-of-code/ticket/1609
>
> But one of your criteria is that a good UI should come with a help system,
> too, right?
>
>
> Best regards,
> Heinrich Apfelmus
>
> --
> http://apfelmus.nfshost.com
>
>
>
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