7 ms·

So what killed Haskell is the parochialism, the inability to address the needs of the Enterprise. I don’t think so. What killed Haskell in mainstream programmi

by lacker 6y ago

So what killed Haskell is the parochialism, the inability to address the needs of the Enterprise. I don’t think so. What killed Haskell in mainstream programming is its weird syntax. Rust looks like C so it passed that first sanity check. People hate that something so aesthetically basic could define the success of programming languages, but it seems pretty clear at this point. Languages have to basically look like C in order to be popular.

metreo 6y ago
Come to think of it you could take the arguments made here and replace Haskell with Perl, and then also replace Rust with Haskell and it would still make more sense.
- wolco 6y ago
  Perl was mainstream and exists in many corners. Haskell was never mainstream.
- moonbug 6y ago
  except that 15 years ago, Perl was everywhere
- xupybd 6y ago
  I worked with a perl backend for years. The frame work was very good but perl was horrible. I hate the syntax and really hate having to reference and dereference. It is not that hard to do but it's just so annoying.
Daishiman 6y ago
What killed Haskell is its obsession with monad-as-burrito tutorials that had nothing to do with getting anything useful done, as well as considering writing a PDF in Latex as an acceptable substitute for a blog post or documentation. Nothing in Haskell was sufficiently interesting to justify overcoming the conceptual barriers and different culture.
- alexbanks 6y ago
  Purely anecdotally, I've found haskell-centric spaces to be pretty hostile, which definitely did not help getting me interested.
  - tome 6y ago
    Interesting. Would you mind expanding your anecdote, explaining which spaces and what you found hostile? Knowing that would help me understand how to improve the community. Thanks.
    - alexbanks 6y ago
      /r/programming, /r/haskell, this site, interactions with real people at Haskell meetups and normal programming meetups.
      - codygman 6y ago
        I'm very sorry for your bad experiences. If you are comfortable giving some examples of that bad behavior and what it looked like I'd be happy to watch out for it and call anyone on that bad behavior so others don't have to experience it.
        alexbanks 6y ago
        I just noticed this comment. I appreciate your and tome's obvious concern for the community you're a part of, and I hope very much that you both continue to enjoy it and thrive. I mean you no ill-will and wish you best of luck.
- rainsil 6y ago
  The issue with monad tutorials is that they start at the top - trying to impart a generalizable understanding of the concept (which, short of category-theoretic explanations, requires hopelessly leaky analogies) instead of focusing on the purpose and usage of specific monads.[1][2] Abstract concepts must be first made concrete in order to understand them; in the case of monads, it's best to just look at the type signature for specific monads' "bind" (>>=) functions, as well as examples of usage, while actually using them in (permissively typed) code, rather than trying to connect burrito analogies to real life. [1]:http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/#eightfold-path-to-monad-satori http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/#eightfold-path-to-monad-sa... [2]:Regular expression tutorials, by contrast, virtually never attempt to explain regular languages or automata theory, which is why nobody complains about having to learn formal language theory in order to use `sed`. A surprisingly digestible (and concrete) explaination of monads (Ch 2): http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~rjmh/Papers/arrows.pdf http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~rjmh/Papers/arrows.pdf
volument 6y ago
This is exactly what happened to me: I did not take a further look on Haskell just because its syntax seemed so weird.
- dunefox 6y ago
  That's like saying you don't want to learn things you don't already know.
- smabie 6y ago
  With that kind of attitude, you're not going to learn very much. You should take the opposite approach: be more interested the weirder the thing is.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - volument 6y ago
    Being interesting is not enough when you are picking a language for your next major project.
ashtonkem 6y ago
I disagree that syntax killed Haskell, but I agree that the Haskell syntax is particularly bad. First, it’s the first language I’ve used in any capacity where I can’t mentally map the syntax. The orders of precedence are way too complicated, and the end result is that I end up blindly throwing $’s at the code until eventually it works. I have no idea why it has to be this hard. Second, indentation. Seriously, indentation. Haskell is one of those accursed languages, along with Python, where indentation is apparently just utterly broken. I have yet to see A Haskell editor that can offer much more than the ability to cycle through the possible indentation levels given the context. It’s maddeningly bad, and often most editors can’t clean it up after the fact either.
scoutt 6y ago
> Rust looks like C I program in C for a living, and no, Rust doesn't look like C. In fact, one of the things that keeps me away from learning Rust is that it is so complicated in terms of syntax. Today I was reading this HN entry (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24404628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24404628) and there is a little Rust code snippet towards the end, and I was thinking "this is so fck'd up, I'll never grasp Rust". > Languages have to basically look like C I wish they do.
- vvillena 6y ago
  Rust has more syntax than other languages, but it's a cleverly designed language: every bit of syntax has one unique, clear meaning. Every bit of Rust syntax is intentional, and the official Rust documentation helps explain the reason behind it, with the reason usually being "the programmer is forced to make a choice that is usually implicit in other languages, and we want the code to explicitly show the choice the programmer made".
  - scoutt 6y ago
    I love the intention and the motivation behind the reasons they choose to define new syntax, but in what syntax regards, I tend to prefer less, not more. To me, things aren't clearer by adding more text or context. "...perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away..." - Antoine de Saint Exupéry
    - pornel 6y ago
      You're overthinking it. Rust's syntax is not that complicated, even if it looks a bit scary before you read the book. For C programmers the real hard part is in semantics of references, which C programmers mistake for general-purpose pointers, and gloss over ownership. Rust has an intentional well thought-out approach to what it makes explicit[1], which is useful in a language that is focused on control, correctness, and performance. It's not trying to make source code beautiful, it's trying to balance usability of the language with avoidance of surprises caused by implicit compiler magic. [1]: https://boats.gitlab.io/blog/post/2017-12-27-things-explicit-is-not/ https://boats.gitlab.io/blog/post/2017-12-27-things-explicit...
kimi 6y ago
Clojure does not look like C and requires some pretty tough mind-bending, especially if you have been programming for 30+ years like I did when I started. Still, more people use it than Haskell. But it has an enterprise-friendly environment (all Java or JS libraries, or both) and a super-friendly community.
viro 6y ago
Does python look like C? Its doesn't to me but w/e

by lacker 6y ago

metreo 6y ago

Come to think of it you could take the arguments made here and replace Haskell with Perl, and then also replace Rust with Haskell and it would still make more sense.

wolco 6y ago
Perl was mainstream and exists in many corners. Haskell was never mainstream.
moonbug 6y ago
except that 15 years ago, Perl was everywhere
xupybd 6y ago
I worked with a perl backend for years. The frame work was very good but perl was horrible. I hate the syntax and really hate having to reference and dereference. It is not that hard to do but it's just so annoying.

Daishiman 6y ago

What killed Haskell is its obsession with monad-as-burrito tutorials that had nothing to do with getting anything useful done, as well as considering writing a PDF in Latex as an acceptable substitute for a blog post or documentation. Nothing in Haskell was sufficiently interesting to justify overcoming the conceptual barriers and different culture.

alexbanks 6y ago
Purely anecdotally, I've found haskell-centric spaces to be pretty hostile, which definitely did not help getting me interested.
- tome 6y ago
  Interesting. Would you mind expanding your anecdote, explaining which spaces and what you found hostile? Knowing that would help me understand how to improve the community. Thanks.
  - alexbanks 6y ago
    /r/programming, /r/haskell, this site, interactions with real people at Haskell meetups and normal programming meetups.
    - codygman 6y ago
      I'm very sorry for your bad experiences. If you are comfortable giving some examples of that bad behavior and what it looked like I'd be happy to watch out for it and call anyone on that bad behavior so others don't have to experience it.
      - alexbanks 6y ago
        I just noticed this comment. I appreciate your and tome's obvious concern for the community you're a part of, and I hope very much that you both continue to enjoy it and thrive. I mean you no ill-will and wish you best of luck.
rainsil 6y ago
The issue with monad tutorials is that they start at the top - trying to impart a generalizable understanding of the concept (which, short of category-theoretic explanations, requires hopelessly leaky analogies) instead of focusing on the purpose and usage of specific monads.[1][2] Abstract concepts must be first made concrete in order to understand them; in the case of monads, it's best to just look at the type signature for specific monads' "bind" (>>=) functions, as well as examples of usage, while actually using them in (permissively typed) code, rather than trying to connect burrito analogies to real life. [1]:http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/#eightfold-path-to-monad-satori http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/#eightfold-path-to-monad-sa... [2]:Regular expression tutorials, by contrast, virtually never attempt to explain regular languages or automata theory, which is why nobody complains about having to learn formal language theory in order to use `sed`. A surprisingly digestible (and concrete) explaination of monads (Ch 2): http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~rjmh/Papers/arrows.pdf http://www.cse.chalmers.se/~rjmh/Papers/arrows.pdf

volument 6y ago

This is exactly what happened to me: I did not take a further look on Haskell just because its syntax seemed so weird.

dunefox 6y ago
That's like saying you don't want to learn things you don't already know.
smabie 6y ago
With that kind of attitude, you're not going to learn very much. You should take the opposite approach: be more interested the weirder the thing is.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- volument 6y ago
  Being interesting is not enough when you are picking a language for your next major project.

ashtonkem 6y ago

I disagree that syntax killed Haskell, but I agree that the Haskell syntax is particularly bad. First, it’s the first language I’ve used in any capacity where I can’t mentally map the syntax. The orders of precedence are way too complicated, and the end result is that I end up blindly throwing $’s at the code until eventually it works. I have no idea why it has to be this hard. Second, indentation. Seriously, indentation. Haskell is one of those accursed languages, along with Python, where indentation is apparently just utterly broken. I have yet to see A Haskell editor that can offer much more than the ability to cycle through the possible indentation levels given the context. It’s maddeningly bad, and often most editors can’t clean it up after the fact either.

scoutt 6y ago

> Rust looks like C I program in C for a living, and no, Rust doesn't look like C. In fact, one of the things that keeps me away from learning Rust is that it is so complicated in terms of syntax. Today I was reading this HN entry (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24404628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24404628) and there is a little Rust code snippet towards the end, and I was thinking "this is so fck'd up, I'll never grasp Rust". > Languages have to basically look like C I wish they do.

vvillena 6y ago
Rust has more syntax than other languages, but it's a cleverly designed language: every bit of syntax has one unique, clear meaning. Every bit of Rust syntax is intentional, and the official Rust documentation helps explain the reason behind it, with the reason usually being "the programmer is forced to make a choice that is usually implicit in other languages, and we want the code to explicitly show the choice the programmer made".
- scoutt 6y ago
  I love the intention and the motivation behind the reasons they choose to define new syntax, but in what syntax regards, I tend to prefer less, not more. To me, things aren't clearer by adding more text or context. "...perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away..." - Antoine de Saint Exupéry
  - pornel 6y ago
    You're overthinking it. Rust's syntax is not that complicated, even if it looks a bit scary before you read the book. For C programmers the real hard part is in semantics of references, which C programmers mistake for general-purpose pointers, and gloss over ownership. Rust has an intentional well thought-out approach to what it makes explicit[1], which is useful in a language that is focused on control, correctness, and performance. It's not trying to make source code beautiful, it's trying to balance usability of the language with avoidance of surprises caused by implicit compiler magic. [1]: https://boats.gitlab.io/blog/post/2017-12-27-things-explicit-is-not/ https://boats.gitlab.io/blog/post/2017-12-27-things-explicit...

kimi 6y ago

Clojure does not look like C and requires some pretty tough mind-bending, especially if you have been programming for 30+ years like I did when I started. Still, more people use it than Haskell. But it has an enterprise-friendly environment (all Java or JS libraries, or both) and a super-friendly community.

viro 6y ago

Does python look like C? Its doesn't to me but w/e