4 ms·

Failing to work on Windows is a much bigger problem than I think most people realize. You can write Java on Windows and (mostly) have it run on Linux or Solaris

by seldo 16y ago

Failing to work on Windows is a much bigger problem than I think most people realize. You can write Java on Windows and (mostly) have it run on Linux or Solaris with no problem. And Windows has a 95%+ share in the corporate OS market. Ruby on Rails has a similar problem (though it's got better on Windows recently), and so does Django, which is a nightmare to get working in a Windows environment.

Lewisham 16y ago
I'm not sure that these are really the same market share segments. Django, Rails and all that server side stuff is best run on servers, which more often than not, are going to be running a *nix. Windows has C# and all that, and it works nicely for them. Perhaps this leads to a wider question of who the Haskell audience really is and what problems they think they solve. Lots of languages have pigeon-holes, Ruby has its super dynamism, Python is an excellent scripting environment, C is fast, etc etc. Haskell is... mathsy. Mathsy applications already have Matlab and such. I think at the end of the day, Haskell will probably remain a language from which other languages learn from, and that's OK, and that doesn't mean it's unimportant (I think even SPJ has said similar).
- bmj 16y ago
  I think the issue here is buy in from management. If I work at a Windows-centric shop, it's much easier to sell a different platform if it doesn't require building new servers for it. It's much harder to pitch a project when your requirements include new OSes and servers. For example, I work at a Windows-centric shop, but if I could make a compelling case to build a tool/product on a different platform, I could get my boss to approve it if it didn't require a new piece of hardware. We have written tools in other languages besides C#, but we stick to languages that are easy to deploy on our current servers.
- shadowfox 16y ago
  > Haskell is... mathsy. Mathsy applications already have Matlab and such I would think Haskell is "mathsy" in a much different sense than Matlab is "mathsy"
tumult 16y ago
Haskell works fine on Windows. Some of the lead GHC devs use Windows machines. GHC even comes with a Win32 binding that lets you do GUI programming (doesn't come with a GUI kit for any other platform standard.)
gaius 16y ago
Haskell is fiddly to use on OSX too. All the devs seem to have moved to OSX 10.6 and it isn't being fully tested on 10.5.8. Now you might say "just upgrade" but that's not the point. I am running a Debian VM in VirtualBox for my Haskell work now... That's great when it's just me playing, but not so much for production code.

by seldo 16y ago

Lewisham 16y ago

I'm not sure that these are really the same market share segments. Django, Rails and all that server side stuff is best run on servers, which more often than not, are going to be running a *nix. Windows has C# and all that, and it works nicely for them. Perhaps this leads to a wider question of who the Haskell audience really is and what problems they think they solve. Lots of languages have pigeon-holes, Ruby has its super dynamism, Python is an excellent scripting environment, C is fast, etc etc. Haskell is... mathsy. Mathsy applications already have Matlab and such. I think at the end of the day, Haskell will probably remain a language from which other languages learn from, and that's OK, and that doesn't mean it's unimportant (I think even SPJ has said similar).

bmj 16y ago
I think the issue here is buy in from management. If I work at a Windows-centric shop, it's much easier to sell a different platform if it doesn't require building new servers for it. It's much harder to pitch a project when your requirements include new OSes and servers. For example, I work at a Windows-centric shop, but if I could make a compelling case to build a tool/product on a different platform, I could get my boss to approve it if it didn't require a new piece of hardware. We have written tools in other languages besides C#, but we stick to languages that are easy to deploy on our current servers.
shadowfox 16y ago
> Haskell is... mathsy. Mathsy applications already have Matlab and such I would think Haskell is "mathsy" in a much different sense than Matlab is "mathsy"

tumult 16y ago

Haskell works fine on Windows. Some of the lead GHC devs use Windows machines. GHC even comes with a Win32 binding that lets you do GUI programming (doesn't come with a GUI kit for any other platform standard.)

gaius 16y ago

Haskell is fiddly to use on OSX too. All the devs seem to have moved to OSX 10.6 and it isn't being fully tested on 10.5.8. Now you might say "just upgrade" but that's not the point. I am running a Debian VM in VirtualBox for my Haskell work now... That's great when it's just me playing, but not so much for production code.