4 ms·

Ask HN: Is Haskell Worth Learning?

16 points by dhkts1 6y ago

jonas21 6y ago
No
PaulHoule 6y ago
Depends on your goals. Really I think Prolog, Constraint Handling Rules and similar systems are more interesting.
bjourne 6y ago
It depends.
quda 6y ago
No. Try Elixir. Much more useful in the real world.
- splintercell 6y ago
  He said worth learning, not worth using, and Haskell is absolutely worth learning.
MarsTeam 6y ago
Yes
karmakaze 6y ago
F#
nnoitra 6y ago
Absolutely yes, if you have only been working with langs such as C, Java, Javascript etc. Basically it will fundamentally shift your thinking. Honestly though, I prefer ocaml much more than haskell because it has a cleaner syntax.
- tome 6y ago
  > I prefer ocaml much more than haskell because it has a cleaner syntax. That's interesting. One typically hears the other way round. Could you give some examples?
diehunde 6y ago
If it's only for fun sure. Otherwise no.
yesenadam 6y ago
I'd say it depends on which languages you already know/have been exposed to. After downloading some software written in Haskell this week, I installed GHC and got some books on Haskell. Got sick of constantly hearing about how cool it is! After reading a few dozen pages, I thought it looked a lot like (Standard) ML, which I got into a couple of years ago. So I googled differences between Haskell and ML, and they indeed sound not-so-very-different. So I gave up on that idea for now. I was after a language very different from any I knew before. Maybe next year. (In recent years have gotten into Lisp, Prolog, Forth, ML, Tcl etc - each totally different from each other and from languages I knew before.) A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. - Alan Perliss
- dllthomas 6y ago
  I initially picked up Haskell because I hadn't done anything that was lazy by default, which - when you focus on pulling at that thread - can be a pretty big difference from any of the ones you've mentioned. The syntax is pretty close to ML, for sure. Ultimately, it's the type system and the pervasive immutability that I miss most when I'm working in other languages. The ML type system is related, but the differences (in both directions!) are interesting.
TXV 6y ago
If you were never exposed to functional programming before, learning Haskell will give you a whole new perspective on how you write code, and I bet it will make you a better programmer just because of that. With that said, in Europe I ever came across exactly zero job ads that require Haskell, and exactly one in Singapore. In North America / Bay Area it might be more common though.

16 points by dhkts1 6y ago

jonas21 6y ago

PaulHoule 6y ago

Depends on your goals. Really I think Prolog, Constraint Handling Rules and similar systems are more interesting.

bjourne 6y ago

It depends.

quda 6y ago

No. Try Elixir. Much more useful in the real world.

splintercell 6y ago
He said worth learning, not worth using, and Haskell is absolutely worth learning.

MarsTeam 6y ago

Yes

karmakaze 6y ago

nnoitra 6y ago

Absolutely yes, if you have only been working with langs such as C, Java, Javascript etc. Basically it will fundamentally shift your thinking. Honestly though, I prefer ocaml much more than haskell because it has a cleaner syntax.

tome 6y ago
> I prefer ocaml much more than haskell because it has a cleaner syntax. That's interesting. One typically hears the other way round. Could you give some examples?

diehunde 6y ago

If it's only for fun sure. Otherwise no.

yesenadam 6y ago

I'd say it depends on which languages you already know/have been exposed to. After downloading some software written in Haskell this week, I installed GHC and got some books on Haskell. Got sick of constantly hearing about how cool it is! After reading a few dozen pages, I thought it looked a lot like (Standard) ML, which I got into a couple of years ago. So I googled differences between Haskell and ML, and they indeed sound not-so-very-different. So I gave up on that idea for now. I was after a language very different from any I knew before. Maybe next year. (In recent years have gotten into Lisp, Prolog, Forth, ML, Tcl etc - each totally different from each other and from languages I knew before.) A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. - Alan Perliss

dllthomas 6y ago
I initially picked up Haskell because I hadn't done anything that was lazy by default, which - when you focus on pulling at that thread - can be a pretty big difference from any of the ones you've mentioned. The syntax is pretty close to ML, for sure. Ultimately, it's the type system and the pervasive immutability that I miss most when I'm working in other languages. The ML type system is related, but the differences (in both directions!) are interesting.

TXV 6y ago

If you were never exposed to functional programming before, learning Haskell will give you a whole new perspective on how you write code, and I bet it will make you a better programmer just because of that. With that said, in Europe I ever came across exactly zero job ads that require Haskell, and exactly one in Singapore. In North America / Bay Area it might be more common though.