4 ms·

> It's not because the languages are particularly difficult or arcane, it's mainly because people don't already know it, and people don't like to learn to do th

by tasuki 4y ago

> It's not because the languages are particularly difficult or arcane, it's mainly because people don't already know it, and people don't like to learn to do things differently: their experience stands in the way. I'm somewhat of a fan of Haskell (though its standard library is awful) and very much a fan of Idris (at the very least it's a better-Haskell, at best, dependent types!), but hard disagree. These languages are difficult and arcane, compared to eg Python. A beginner to programming can get started with Python immediately, it reads like pseudocode. Get started with Haskell or Idris, you quickly hit higher kinded types, monad transformers, free monads, final tagless. It's a different universe.

ivanbakel 4y ago
>Get started with Haskell or Idris, you quickly hit higher kinded types, monad transformers, free monads, final tagless. It's a different universe. How is any new developer hitting any of these "quickly"? I'm working on a mature production codebase with plenty of advanced Haskell, and we barely have any tagless final code - much less free monads. Even HKDs and monad transformers are relatively recent additions to our toolbox that we reach for when appropriate - most of the code uses plain old datatypes and one or two concrete monad types. My experience of learning Haskell is that many production codebases use advanced features because they are big boons to productivity, but few learning resources make reference to them. In fact, Haskell's biggest problem is probably the gap in knowledge between simple, low-productivity code written by newer developers, and the kind of code that actually goes into production with all the optional advanced features. A budding developer can easily write a whole application that never goes beyond `IO` without issue.
TchoBeer 4y ago
Alternatively, getting started with Java you quickly hit polymorphism, inheritance, getters-and-setters, and null object handling. And yet everyone in my intro to CS class in uni managed to pick up Java within a week or two. Haskell is a bit more involved than Python, but not more involved than most languages.
- tasuki 4y ago
  Yes, Java is kind of the worst of both worlds. You have to learn new concepts and they aren't even very useful concepts.

by tasuki 4y ago

ivanbakel 4y ago

>Get started with Haskell or Idris, you quickly hit higher kinded types, monad transformers, free monads, final tagless. It's a different universe. How is any new developer hitting any of these "quickly"? I'm working on a mature production codebase with plenty of advanced Haskell, and we barely have any tagless final code - much less free monads. Even HKDs and monad transformers are relatively recent additions to our toolbox that we reach for when appropriate - most of the code uses plain old datatypes and one or two concrete monad types. My experience of learning Haskell is that many production codebases use advanced features because they are big boons to productivity, but few learning resources make reference to them. In fact, Haskell's biggest problem is probably the gap in knowledge between simple, low-productivity code written by newer developers, and the kind of code that actually goes into production with all the optional advanced features. A budding developer can easily write a whole application that never goes beyond `IO` without issue.

TchoBeer 4y ago

Alternatively, getting started with Java you quickly hit polymorphism, inheritance, getters-and-setters, and null object handling. And yet everyone in my intro to CS class in uni managed to pick up Java within a week or two. Haskell is a bit more involved than Python, but not more involved than most languages.

tasuki 4y ago
Yes, Java is kind of the worst of both worlds. You have to learn new concepts and they aren't even very useful concepts.