[Haskell] Re: [Haskell-cafe] Haskell versus Lisp

[Michael Vanier]

> Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 23:33:46 +0200
> From: Tomasz Zielonka <tomasz.zielonka at gmail.com>
> 
> On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 05:40:04PM +0100, Glynn Clements wrote:
> > 
> > Every other language (including Haskell) tends to have the problem
> > that eventually you will encounter a situation where the language's
> > own worldview gets in the way.
> 
> Are you sure that lisp's worldview never gets in the way?
> 
> > Or, to put it another way: if Haskell is so flexible, why do we need
> > Template Haskell?
> 
> It's nice to have Template Haskell, but saying that we need it is a bit
> of an overstatement. In the GHC Survey 2005 only 9% of people said it's
> essential. Well, OK, I was one of them, but I think you know what I
> mean.
> 
> > I can't imagine a "Template Lisp"; it would just be Lisp.
> 
> The power of lisp macros is often overrated. I remember a long
> discussion crossposted on comp.lang.lisp an comp.lang.functional. The
> lisp advocates gave examples for how macros allow to do things
> supposedly unavailable in other languages. Surprisingly, most of these
> things were equally easy to do with higher-order functions and closures
> in Haskell.
> 

But were they as efficient?  The beauty of macros is that a lot of things
can be done with no run-time overhead at all.  Not that I'm taking a stand
on the Haskell-vs-Lisp argument; I think everyone should learn both
languages.

Mike