[Haskell-cafe] Haskell Usage

[Jo Durchholz]

On 14.11.23 22:27, Henrique Caldeira wrote:
> I write to you about the usage of Haskell because I had a professor 
> recommending me Erlang instead because Haskell was "more for academic 
> purposes", which left me wondering if all my time spent was spent only 
> for curiosity sake.
> 
> I want to know how true my professor's statement is.

It depends on what you look at.

Going by the number of positions in industry, both languages are niche.
Haskell is somewhat more niche than Erlang, but this could change 
anytime; essentially both language would gain instant traction on the 
job market as soon as some large corporation starts supporting and 
advocating it.

Going by history, Haskell started in research while Erlang started at 
Ericsson for programming telephony switches (which are scarily 
complicated beasts); however, both languages grew significantly beyond 
their respective origin.

Going by ecosystem, both have toolchains, useful standard libraries, and 
nontrivial applications in production use.

So... it's sort of true, but recommending Erlang over Haskell is a bit odd.

HTH
Jo