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What scares me about C++ is that it seems even people who used it extensively for a while call themselves, "intermediate," and still find themselves in C++-shap

What scares me about C++ is that it seems even people who used it extensively for a while call themselves, "intermediate," and still find themselves in C++-shaped holes. If something breaks and I need to fix it now, I don't want to be fighting with a language that says, "it's fine to cast that pointer, don't worry about it," or takes years to master to that level. Maybe I'm just missing the point(er). You can repeat this argument for any X language you want. For me you want to work in a language that doesn't let you cut any corners by default. This is what Haskell and some other FP languages do. I can perform unsafe pointer operations in Haskell but it's going to be loud, noisy, and painful to write. As it should be! In languages like C++/Java/etc you have to be disciplined and opt-in to maintaining the kind of code that Haskell defaults to.

rich_sasha 6y ago
My point is, the gap between competence and expert knowledge seems to be much wider in C++ among others. I’m a pretty basic C++er but can use it effectively, if not efficiently. It seems, from the outside, in Haskell you need to know a lot more before even a basic level of effective use is possible.
- agentultra 6y ago
  I can see that. The effect is pronounced if you're experienced in C++ (and C-like languages in general) and attempt to learn Haskell. There is almost no transferable knowledge from those kinds of languages to Haskell which means you're basically starting from the beginning. That can be infuriating for an experienced developer. It certainly was for me -- twenty-some years of programming knowledge that wasn't terribly useful at all! When moving from C++ to C# or Rust it's not as big a deal: there are the familiar concepts we can use to bridge the gap towards understanding the missing information. Haskell is just fundamentally different. Fortunately though I feel like the "Haskell cliff," is over-stated. The concepts you need to learn to get started and write useful programs is not as high as you might think. The ceiling, like in C++, is really high. Most mainstream languages have, or are planning to add in the next couple of years, all of those features you need when getting started with Haskell: ADTs, pattern matching, parametric and ad-hoc polymorphism, type inference, higher-order functions, and immutable values. So I think it depends on the code-base you're starting on and what you mean by effective use. If you're trying to contribute to a security analysis tools that uses a lot of type-level programming to encode specification invariants then you'll have a lot of learning to do before you can get started. If you're contributing to a SaaS web application then there's a good chance that only a "basic" level of knowledge about how to program with monads is all that will be required.

rich_sasha 6y ago

My point is, the gap between competence and expert knowledge seems to be much wider in C++ among others. I’m a pretty basic C++er but can use it effectively, if not efficiently. It seems, from the outside, in Haskell you need to know a lot more before even a basic level of effective use is possible.

agentultra 6y ago
I can see that. The effect is pronounced if you're experienced in C++ (and C-like languages in general) and attempt to learn Haskell. There is almost no transferable knowledge from those kinds of languages to Haskell which means you're basically starting from the beginning. That can be infuriating for an experienced developer. It certainly was for me -- twenty-some years of programming knowledge that wasn't terribly useful at all! When moving from C++ to C# or Rust it's not as big a deal: there are the familiar concepts we can use to bridge the gap towards understanding the missing information. Haskell is just fundamentally different. Fortunately though I feel like the "Haskell cliff," is over-stated. The concepts you need to learn to get started and write useful programs is not as high as you might think. The ceiling, like in C++, is really high. Most mainstream languages have, or are planning to add in the next couple of years, all of those features you need when getting started with Haskell: ADTs, pattern matching, parametric and ad-hoc polymorphism, type inference, higher-order functions, and immutable values. So I think it depends on the code-base you're starting on and what you mean by effective use. If you're trying to contribute to a security analysis tools that uses a lot of type-level programming to encode specification invariants then you'll have a lot of learning to do before you can get started. If you're contributing to a SaaS web application then there's a good chance that only a "basic" level of knowledge about how to program with monads is all that will be required.