4 ms·

The thing that makes me skeptical of this view is the relative dearth of software written in haskell. I can point to a hundred things I use every day developed

The thing that makes me skeptical of this view is the relative dearth of software written in haskell. I can point to a hundred things I use every day developed with python (package manager, reddit, instagram, etc.) but the only thing I can think of that was built in haskell is Facebook's spam filter.

lmm 11y ago
You wouldn't necessarily notice. A lot of the use of functional languages is finance-industry where companies prefer to keep the technology they're using secret.
- dTal 11y ago
  I feel like this argument comes up whenever a high-level language with mysteriously low uptake is under discussion. Lisp, APL/J/K, Haskell - all are "used in finance, but it's secret sauce so you don't hear about it". This makes me uncomfortable. Use in a particular niche sector does not preclude use in a different sector. Finance may well secretly use all of these weird high-level languages (though how would you falsify this?), but that still doesn't explain why you don't see them anywhere else. So either finance is amazingly brave or well-suited to niche functional languages (in which case use in finance proves nothing), or it's a conveniently reputable-sounding use that doesn't actually require any proof. I, for one, will continue treating visible, published software (and libraries) as a useful metric of programming language usefulness and popularity.
  - lmm 11y ago
    > So either finance is amazingly brave or well-suited to niche functional languages (in which case use in finance proves nothing), or it's a conveniently reputable-sounding use that doesn't actually require any proof. I, for one, will continue treating visible, published software (and libraries) as a useful metric of programming language usefulness and popularity. I'd say it's the opposite: use in visible, published software and libraries is a very specific niche (or rather two specific niches: OSS and webdev), and not representative of software as a whole. The open-source community is a Unix- and therefore C-oriented community; a lot of Haskell work happens at Microsoft, and a lot of JVM work happens at Oracle, and a lot of OCaml work happens in Europe, which puts all those things somewhat at odds with RedHat. Webdev is uniquely ill-suited to typed languages because of the history of browsers and HTML in particular. If you just looked at published software/libraries you'd think no-one was using Java or C++, when those are likely still the most popular languages in software development as a whole.
    - crdoconnor 11y ago
      >use in visible, published software and libraries is a very specific niche facepalm
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  Which is all very well except you wouldn't necessarily notice most of what is written in most languages.
- progman 11y ago
  The Haskell community could silence the critics quickly by pointing to some real world open source applications which prove the practical usability of Haskell. So far there aren't much. Most of them deal with DSL. There are only two Haskell IDEs written in Haskell: Leksah and Yi. The only good native IDE (AFAIK) is EclipseFP, and that is written in Java. Perhaps some Haskellers should take the effort and develop a really sophisticated Haskell IDE which Haskell beginners could follow and use to learn and advance in Haskell. Theoretic knowledge about Haskell is good but practical application is another thing.
  - ivcha 11y ago
    Please, not another IDE. Perhaps a compiler or a static analyzer -- the task Haskell is a very good fit for.

lmm 11y ago

You wouldn't necessarily notice. A lot of the use of functional languages is finance-industry where companies prefer to keep the technology they're using secret.

dTal 11y ago
I feel like this argument comes up whenever a high-level language with mysteriously low uptake is under discussion. Lisp, APL/J/K, Haskell - all are "used in finance, but it's secret sauce so you don't hear about it". This makes me uncomfortable. Use in a particular niche sector does not preclude use in a different sector. Finance may well secretly use all of these weird high-level languages (though how would you falsify this?), but that still doesn't explain why you don't see them anywhere else. So either finance is amazingly brave or well-suited to niche functional languages (in which case use in finance proves nothing), or it's a conveniently reputable-sounding use that doesn't actually require any proof. I, for one, will continue treating visible, published software (and libraries) as a useful metric of programming language usefulness and popularity.
- lmm 11y ago
  > So either finance is amazingly brave or well-suited to niche functional languages (in which case use in finance proves nothing), or it's a conveniently reputable-sounding use that doesn't actually require any proof. I, for one, will continue treating visible, published software (and libraries) as a useful metric of programming language usefulness and popularity. I'd say it's the opposite: use in visible, published software and libraries is a very specific niche (or rather two specific niches: OSS and webdev), and not representative of software as a whole. The open-source community is a Unix- and therefore C-oriented community; a lot of Haskell work happens at Microsoft, and a lot of JVM work happens at Oracle, and a lot of OCaml work happens in Europe, which puts all those things somewhat at odds with RedHat. Webdev is uniquely ill-suited to typed languages because of the history of browsers and HTML in particular. If you just looked at published software/libraries you'd think no-one was using Java or C++, when those are likely still the most popular languages in software development as a whole.
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    >use in visible, published software and libraries is a very specific niche facepalm
crdoconnor 11y ago
Which is all very well except you wouldn't necessarily notice most of what is written in most languages.
progman 11y ago
The Haskell community could silence the critics quickly by pointing to some real world open source applications which prove the practical usability of Haskell. So far there aren't much. Most of them deal with DSL. There are only two Haskell IDEs written in Haskell: Leksah and Yi. The only good native IDE (AFAIK) is EclipseFP, and that is written in Java. Perhaps some Haskellers should take the effort and develop a really sophisticated Haskell IDE which Haskell beginners could follow and use to learn and advance in Haskell. Theoretic knowledge about Haskell is good but practical application is another thing.
- ivcha 11y ago
  Please, not another IDE. Perhaps a compiler or a static analyzer -- the task Haskell is a very good fit for.