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I'm not trying to complain! I'm just saying that the type system is A Thing that people need to learn, and I think that a rigorous type system can be a hindranc
by llimllib 15y ago
I'm not trying to complain! I'm just saying that the type system is A Thing that people need to learn, and I think that a rigorous type system can be a hindrance to learners. As such, I think Wadler should have mentioned it as a possible downside of his hypothetical world where Abelson and Sussman used Miranda in SICP, even if only to debunk it.
- thesz 15y ago"SICP in Miranda" would prepare reader for type system. So the reader of that imaginary version of SICP wouldn't encounter those roadblocks. And those who read Learn You A Haskell don't encounter ones.
- llimllib 15y agoI challenge both of those assertions. I haven't done LYAH, because I was learning haskell before it existed, but I did nearly every available haskell tutorial when I was learning. As soon as you step out of bounds, you find strange corners of the type system. It's quite a complex beast, and many of the error messages are cryptic at best.
- thesz 15y agoI had two colleagues who done LYAH and one who attacked a program with type level programming without LYAH (because of LYAH non-existense at the moment). The first two didn't asked me or my colleague about anything type system related too often. After month or so of on-off work on his project one of them finished a complex translator from CPU description into VHDL. The one who studied Haskell without LYAH did asked us. I attribute it to complexity of program he worked on. My experience allows me to remain confirmed that proper exposure to Haskell type system greatly lessen associated burden. I should note that we didn't encounter many errors in our Haskell code. Much less than in code in Java or C#.
- llimllib 15y agoAn alternative solution: I'm thick! It's consistent with the evidence.