5 ms·

This proves, once again, what a world-class, unbeatable tool Haskell is for writing toy interpreters.

pjmlp 10y ago
Any ML language is. When I was at the university[0], we were forbidden to use Caml Light, Lisp or Prolog in our compiler classes, because they would make the exercises too easy and so we wouldn't learn properly. [0] Haskell was still to be born and we had Miranda instead.
- paulsutter 10y ago
  You might want to read his comment a little more carefully
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    > unbeatable tool Haskell is for writing toy interpreters. unbeatable As if no other language has the same feature set.
    - tome 10y ago
      bertiewhykovich wasn't actually praising Haskell.
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        That isn't what I understand, maybe it lies on my lack of English skills.
        Wildgoose 10y ago
        I am English (and so a natural English speaker) and I read it in the exact same fashion that you did. I think the original poster may have been trying to be sarcastic, (it still isn't clear), but was so subtle about it that they failed for both of us.
        paulsutter 10y ago
        Translation: Haskell may be the most heralded language to produce almost no production code.
        pjmlp 10y ago
        Well I am aware of several production uses of Haskell in UK, Netherlands and Germany.
        CJefferson 10y ago
        Haskell seems to have the most users who usually can't be named, and certainly don't share their code publicly. But trust us, honest, they exist!
        pjmlp 10y ago
        Did you ever bothered to check these companies? https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_industry https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_industry
        yawaramin 10y ago
        Yes, well, anyone can find that out if they care to. The point is the person you replied to was interpreting the original sarcasm, not trying to make a factual statement.
        pjmlp 10y ago
        As non native English speaker I didn't get it was any kind of sarcasm.
        yawaramin 10y ago
        I know, which is why I replied to your comment ;-)
    - lispm 10y ago
      focus your eye on the word TOY and think about it for a while
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        So explain me why Lisp, Prolog or any ML derivative aren't as capable as Haskell for TOY interpreters. Unless s/he was being sarcastic, but if so I don't get the joke.
        lispm 10y ago
        Prepare for a facepalm. It has nothing to do with Lisp or ML. Read again: > This proves, once again, what a world-class, unbeatable tool Haskell is for writing toy interpreters. This somehow suggest a) that it is not quite exactly really there, where one may want to develop a non-toy interpreter/compiler/... and/or b) that a lot of examples are just toy programs which can be as well developed in any language and one has now seen zillions of those in Haskell and everyone is convinced that Haskell is good for implementing toy interpreters. and/or c) that the quality of the code stays on toy level. In this case it is a slightly more advanced toy interpreter, but the implementation lacks any information about its architecture, there is no documentation, stuff is hardcoded, etc. It's the typical slightly autistic implementation where there is the code and a some tests... The real challenge would be to develop a non-toy interpreter/compiler/... Is there Haskell still a world-class, unbeatable tool? Personally I'm not a Haskell user, but I like that people are writing code in it. Though for such an application I would like to see a bit more effort on the meta-information about the code. You can see that in some (!) Lisp programs, people invest some effort to make them very expressive and readable. Just read the PAIP code/book from Peter Norvig which implements some parts of Macsyma in Common Lisp. But there is the danger of not being able to really compete for many high-level languages. Lisp had some attempts for actual products in this domain of computer algebra: Macsyma, Reduce and Axiom were the most prominent. The were developed as real products with actual end-users. They failed in the market place against languages with C/C++-based implementations like Mathematica. Though they are still being maintained as open source / free software projects.
        10y ago
  - kqr 10y ago
    Well, I mean, I understood the sarcasm and it was funny. Part of why it was so funny is because it's true. Haskell is amazing at many things, and one of them certainly is writing toy interpreters.
conistonwater 10y ago
Do you know how many problems can be reduced to writing a toy interpreter? You're much too dismissive of a very useful software engineering technique. (That's if you meant your comment as sarcasm; if it's praise then I'd agree.)

pjmlp 10y ago

Any ML language is. When I was at the university[0], we were forbidden to use Caml Light, Lisp or Prolog in our compiler classes, because they would make the exercises too easy and so we wouldn't learn properly. [0] Haskell was still to be born and we had Miranda instead.

paulsutter 10y ago
You might want to read his comment a little more carefully
- pjmlp 10y ago
  > unbeatable tool Haskell is for writing toy interpreters. unbeatable As if no other language has the same feature set.
  - tome 10y ago
    bertiewhykovich wasn't actually praising Haskell.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      That isn't what I understand, maybe it lies on my lack of English skills.
      - Wildgoose 10y ago
        I am English (and so a natural English speaker) and I read it in the exact same fashion that you did. I think the original poster may have been trying to be sarcastic, (it still isn't clear), but was so subtle about it that they failed for both of us.
        paulsutter 10y ago
        Translation: Haskell may be the most heralded language to produce almost no production code.
        pjmlp 10y ago
        Well I am aware of several production uses of Haskell in UK, Netherlands and Germany.
        CJefferson 10y ago
        Haskell seems to have the most users who usually can't be named, and certainly don't share their code publicly. But trust us, honest, they exist!
        pjmlp 10y ago
        Did you ever bothered to check these companies? https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_industry https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_industry
        yawaramin 10y ago
        Yes, well, anyone can find that out if they care to. The point is the person you replied to was interpreting the original sarcasm, not trying to make a factual statement.
        pjmlp 10y ago
        As non native English speaker I didn't get it was any kind of sarcasm.
        yawaramin 10y ago
        I know, which is why I replied to your comment ;-)
  - lispm 10y ago
    focus your eye on the word TOY and think about it for a while
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      So explain me why Lisp, Prolog or any ML derivative aren't as capable as Haskell for TOY interpreters. Unless s/he was being sarcastic, but if so I don't get the joke.
      - lispm 10y ago
        Prepare for a facepalm. It has nothing to do with Lisp or ML. Read again: > This proves, once again, what a world-class, unbeatable tool Haskell is for writing toy interpreters. This somehow suggest a) that it is not quite exactly really there, where one may want to develop a non-toy interpreter/compiler/... and/or b) that a lot of examples are just toy programs which can be as well developed in any language and one has now seen zillions of those in Haskell and everyone is convinced that Haskell is good for implementing toy interpreters. and/or c) that the quality of the code stays on toy level. In this case it is a slightly more advanced toy interpreter, but the implementation lacks any information about its architecture, there is no documentation, stuff is hardcoded, etc. It's the typical slightly autistic implementation where there is the code and a some tests... The real challenge would be to develop a non-toy interpreter/compiler/... Is there Haskell still a world-class, unbeatable tool? Personally I'm not a Haskell user, but I like that people are writing code in it. Though for such an application I would like to see a bit more effort on the meta-information about the code. You can see that in some (!) Lisp programs, people invest some effort to make them very expressive and readable. Just read the PAIP code/book from Peter Norvig which implements some parts of Macsyma in Common Lisp. But there is the danger of not being able to really compete for many high-level languages. Lisp had some attempts for actual products in this domain of computer algebra: Macsyma, Reduce and Axiom were the most prominent. The were developed as real products with actual end-users. They failed in the market place against languages with C/C++-based implementations like Mathematica. Though they are still being maintained as open source / free software projects.
        10y ago
- kqr 10y ago
  Well, I mean, I understood the sarcasm and it was funny. Part of why it was so funny is because it's true. Haskell is amazing at many things, and one of them certainly is writing toy interpreters.

conistonwater 10y ago

Do you know how many problems can be reduced to writing a toy interpreter? You're much too dismissive of a very useful software engineering technique. (That's if you meant your comment as sarcasm; if it's praise then I'd agree.)