3 ms·

It's a shame, too, because until that point (when I was still just following the "getting started" docs and doing the first half of the app, which loads a CSV a

It's a shame, too, because until that point (when I was still just following the "getting started" docs and doing the first half of the app, which loads a CSV and parses it and stuff), I was actually really enjoying it! The type-magic style of development is so different from what I'm used to, I have periodic crises of conscience where I wonder if I've been doing programming wrong all these years, or if it's an example of a community barking up the wrong tree. This thinking is also what prompts me to look into APL/J/K every so often. The last time I really tried to get into hardcore FP programming was several years ago with Haskell, but even then I don't recall Yesod (the web framework I tried out, akin to http4s here) being quite so overwhelming.

chowells 4y ago
And Yesod is one of the worst options in Haskell, at least as far as making me wonder why it's doing so much magic. It's very much trying to build a fully integrated framework instead of being composable Haskell. (To be fair, the underlying parts written to implement it are composable Haskell, and re-used by a lot of other web server projects.)
- bradrn 4y ago
  I think ‘worst’ is very subjective here. It certainly does aim to be an all-encompassing ‘framework’ — but this is hardly unusual amongst web libraries (not just for Haskell!), and I feel Yesod gets the job done pretty well. Of course, Haskell has many alternatives if you don’t like Yesod: amongst other libraries, there’s Servant [0], snap [1], scotty [2], and the lower-level wai [3] and warp [4] if you feel the need for that kind of control. [0] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/servant https://hackage.haskell.org/package/servant [1] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/snap https://hackage.haskell.org/package/snap [2] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/scotty https://hackage.haskell.org/package/scotty [3] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/wai https://hackage.haskell.org/package/wai [4] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/warp https://hackage.haskell.org/package/warp
hoosieree 4y ago
I dove into the "type driven development" style with Elm (and a little Haskell) a few years back. In my opinion the pure functional style was more important than the type system. Maybe I just didn't try hard enough to think in terms of types, who knows. But I have to admit - not having to worry about run-time errors is quite nice. Shortly after Elm, I discovered the array languages via J, and felt like I finally found a style of programming that fit my brain properly. Immutable by default, rank-polymorphic, and extremely powerful. Terseness is a feature - when you can write the same program in 1/100 of the code (not an exaggeration), you can explore alternative approaches quickly and find bugs more easily. On the other hand, there's no compiler or fancy type system to find bugs for you, so terseness is also kind of necessary. Today I'd recommend array language newbies to try BQN or K first. BQN has some features that other array languages surprisingly lack (closures, modules), and only a few idiosyncratic design choices (unlike J which is very weird). K is pragmatic (it has dictionaries and tables!) and is ascii-based, but it has an almost Forth-like minimalism. For someone used to 'import xyz' style programming it's a jarring transition.
KingOfCoders 4y ago
And from founding a startup on Scala (Lift + Play), grow over some years and sell, I most dread compiler errors with the type magic. If something doesn't compile because of types, the error messages (at least some years back) were so confusing, it took quite some time to fix problems.
valenterry 4y ago
The http4s library was a bad choice in your case and it's at least partly their fault. They should really make it clear from the very beginning that you MUST understand certain PFP concepts and datatypes to effectively use the library. It is a NOT a library that you should start out with when you learn Scala, unless you have a mentor. I think for you, cask was the right choice and it's good that you found it.
phibz 4y ago
> I have periodic crises of conscience where I wonder if I've been doing programming wrong all these years, or if it's an example of a community barking up the wrong tree. When I first learned of FP about 20 years ago I thought it was a terrible idea. But I've convinced myself I have been proven wrong time and time again. I still think sometime it's complexity for its own sake. Eg. why is it so hard to define a monad? But I enjoyed parts of Scala 2 and later Rust. There are good ideas in FP that lead to programs that are easier to reason about and manage complexity. Languages are borrowing these good ideas and I'm happier for it, algebraic data types, pattern matching and destructuring, result/either, immutability, etc
shirogane86x 4y ago
as someone who did (and still does) a lot of Haskell, and actually loves it, seeing http4s reminded me less of Yesod and more of Servant: really high flexibility, advanced type level magic, and a fairly steep learning curve - especially so if you're not accustomed to advanced typed functional programming.

chowells 4y ago

And Yesod is one of the worst options in Haskell, at least as far as making me wonder why it's doing so much magic. It's very much trying to build a fully integrated framework instead of being composable Haskell. (To be fair, the underlying parts written to implement it are composable Haskell, and re-used by a lot of other web server projects.)

bradrn 4y ago
I think ‘worst’ is very subjective here. It certainly does aim to be an all-encompassing ‘framework’ — but this is hardly unusual amongst web libraries (not just for Haskell!), and I feel Yesod gets the job done pretty well. Of course, Haskell has many alternatives if you don’t like Yesod: amongst other libraries, there’s Servant [0], snap [1], scotty [2], and the lower-level wai [3] and warp [4] if you feel the need for that kind of control. [0] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/servant https://hackage.haskell.org/package/servant [1] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/snap https://hackage.haskell.org/package/snap [2] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/scotty https://hackage.haskell.org/package/scotty [3] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/wai https://hackage.haskell.org/package/wai [4] https://hackage.haskell.org/package/warp https://hackage.haskell.org/package/warp

hoosieree 4y ago

I dove into the "type driven development" style with Elm (and a little Haskell) a few years back. In my opinion the pure functional style was more important than the type system. Maybe I just didn't try hard enough to think in terms of types, who knows. But I have to admit - not having to worry about run-time errors is quite nice. Shortly after Elm, I discovered the array languages via J, and felt like I finally found a style of programming that fit my brain properly. Immutable by default, rank-polymorphic, and extremely powerful. Terseness is a feature - when you can write the same program in 1/100 of the code (not an exaggeration), you can explore alternative approaches quickly and find bugs more easily. On the other hand, there's no compiler or fancy type system to find bugs for you, so terseness is also kind of necessary. Today I'd recommend array language newbies to try BQN or K first. BQN has some features that other array languages surprisingly lack (closures, modules), and only a few idiosyncratic design choices (unlike J which is very weird). K is pragmatic (it has dictionaries and tables!) and is ascii-based, but it has an almost Forth-like minimalism. For someone used to 'import xyz' style programming it's a jarring transition.

KingOfCoders 4y ago

And from founding a startup on Scala (Lift + Play), grow over some years and sell, I most dread compiler errors with the type magic. If something doesn't compile because of types, the error messages (at least some years back) were so confusing, it took quite some time to fix problems.

valenterry 4y ago

The http4s library was a bad choice in your case and it's at least partly their fault. They should really make it clear from the very beginning that you MUST understand certain PFP concepts and datatypes to effectively use the library. It is a NOT a library that you should start out with when you learn Scala, unless you have a mentor. I think for you, cask was the right choice and it's good that you found it.

phibz 4y ago

> I have periodic crises of conscience where I wonder if I've been doing programming wrong all these years, or if it's an example of a community barking up the wrong tree. When I first learned of FP about 20 years ago I thought it was a terrible idea. But I've convinced myself I have been proven wrong time and time again. I still think sometime it's complexity for its own sake. Eg. why is it so hard to define a monad? But I enjoyed parts of Scala 2 and later Rust. There are good ideas in FP that lead to programs that are easier to reason about and manage complexity. Languages are borrowing these good ideas and I'm happier for it, algebraic data types, pattern matching and destructuring, result/either, immutability, etc

shirogane86x 4y ago

as someone who did (and still does) a lot of Haskell, and actually loves it, seeing http4s reminded me less of Yesod and more of Servant: really high flexibility, advanced type level magic, and a fairly steep learning curve - especially so if you're not accustomed to advanced typed functional programming.