5 ms·

Please let's just all be friends. :) It's fair game to discuss and differentiate the two languages on features, but "better for engineers" is going to take us r

Please let's just all be friends. :) It's fair game to discuss and differentiate the two languages on features, but "better for engineers" is going to take us right into the valley of flame-wars, by way of No-True-Scotsman town. :) Haskell and OCaml are both brilliant languages, with excellent feature sets and amazing dev teams... and lots of "engineers" who like them.

yawaramin 5y ago
Note the difference: Kototama: ...I have the feeling that OCaml may be better for engineers. You: let's not say that OCaml is better for engineers. People are allowed to feel things. But I'll give you a concrete reason why OCaml actually can be better for engineers: named and optional arguments. This single feature does wonders for code readability and maintainability. Actually I'll throw in a bonus reason: no laziness by default i.e. small and simple, predictable runtime that behaves almost exactly like a C executable.
- light_hue_1 5y ago
  Named arguments exist, https://hackage.haskell.org/package/named-0.3.0.1/docs/Named.html https://hackage.haskell.org/package/named-0.3.0.1/docs/Named... That's just one example. But yes. Optional arguments are a big problem at scale. And laziness is the worst antifeature I could imagine. But. You can disable laziness and get great performance. You just need to be careful when using libraries and pick ones that have the right strictness. A strict Haskell would be a killer language.
  - pharmakom 5y ago
    > You just need to be careful when using libraries and pick ones that have the right strictness. Honestly a deal breaker > A strict Haskell would be a killer language. PureScript may be this language!
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- rackjack 5y ago
  Also, OCaml has records. Haskell has """records""".
- zanellato19 5y ago
  lets not say that OCaml is better for engineers because thats impossible to prove and we can easily get into a "What is an engineer?" question. Its quite clear that engineers like Haskell _and_ OCaml, so the notion that one is better than the other for that class is just inviting Flamewars.

yawaramin 5y ago

Note the difference: Kototama: ...I have the feeling that OCaml may be better for engineers. You: let's not say that OCaml is better for engineers. People are allowed to feel things. But I'll give you a concrete reason why OCaml actually can be better for engineers: named and optional arguments. This single feature does wonders for code readability and maintainability. Actually I'll throw in a bonus reason: no laziness by default i.e. small and simple, predictable runtime that behaves almost exactly like a C executable.

light_hue_1 5y ago
Named arguments exist, https://hackage.haskell.org/package/named-0.3.0.1/docs/Named.html https://hackage.haskell.org/package/named-0.3.0.1/docs/Named... That's just one example. But yes. Optional arguments are a big problem at scale. And laziness is the worst antifeature I could imagine. But. You can disable laziness and get great performance. You just need to be careful when using libraries and pick ones that have the right strictness. A strict Haskell would be a killer language.
- pharmakom 5y ago
  > You just need to be careful when using libraries and pick ones that have the right strictness. Honestly a deal breaker > A strict Haskell would be a killer language. PureScript may be this language!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
rackjack 5y ago
Also, OCaml has records. Haskell has """records""".
zanellato19 5y ago
lets not say that OCaml is better for engineers because thats impossible to prove and we can easily get into a "What is an engineer?" question. Its quite clear that engineers like Haskell _and_ OCaml, so the notion that one is better than the other for that class is just inviting Flamewars.