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As "A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages" put it: 1990 - A committee formed by Simon Peyton-Jones, Paul Hudak, Philip Wadler,

As "A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages" put it: 1990 - A committee formed by Simon Peyton-Jones, Paul Hudak, Philip Wadler, Ashton Kutcher, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals creates Haskell, a pure, non-strict, functional language. Haskell gets some resistance due to the complexity of using monads to control side effects. Wadler tries to appease critics by explaining that "a monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctors, what's the problem?" https://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html https://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-...

the_af 3y ago
It's a funny joke (I love that post), but it's mostly for people looking from outside in. It says nothing about actually doing IO with Haskell using monads, which is practical and done, and not particularly difficult. We shouldn't mistake memes for actual insight.
- tempodox 3y ago
  > and not particularly difficult. Wait until you want debug output in a deeply nested function that isn't already in the IO monad.
  - jaspervdj 3y ago
    You can use trace for that which is part of the base library: https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.19.1.0/docs/Debug-Trace.html#v:trace https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.19.1.0/docs/Debug...
    - pyrale 3y ago
      Unrelated, but many thanks for organizing Zurihac year after year.
  - the_af 3y ago
    Debugging output, or just plain debugging, is often difficult regardless of the programming language. I wouldn't say this sets Haskell apart.
- bazoom42 3y ago
  Yeah as long as you understand how to use monads IO is easy. This is why Haskell tutorials tend to have 100 pages of dense type-theory before getting to “hello world”, while other languages have that on the first page.
  - tome 3y ago
    I'm not sure which tutorials you're thinking of. Not this one I guess https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_5_steps#Write_your_first_Haskell_program https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_5_steps#Write_your_first... or this one https://riptutorial.com/haskell/example/898/hello--world- https://riptutorial.com/haskell/example/898/hello--world- Can you link to the one that has 100 pages before getting to “hello world”?
    - bazoom42 3y ago
      Learn you a Haskell gets to Hello World at page 128.
      - tome 3y ago
        Yeah, but that's not because the first 127 pages are "dense type theory". It's because that's the first time it teaches about compiled programs rather than the REPL. Besides, "Hello world" also appears on page 14. https://learnyouahaskell.com/learnyouahaskell.pdf https://learnyouahaskell.com/learnyouahaskell.pdf
  - the_af 3y ago
    This is simply untrue. You can do IO without understanding what a monad is, simply taking it as "there is this keyword and this syntax I need to use". No Haskell tutorials that I know of take long to reach "hello world", which is in fact a shorter program in Haskell than in some mainstream programming languages.

the_af 3y ago

It's a funny joke (I love that post), but it's mostly for people looking from outside in. It says nothing about actually doing IO with Haskell using monads, which is practical and done, and not particularly difficult. We shouldn't mistake memes for actual insight.

tempodox 3y ago
> and not particularly difficult. Wait until you want debug output in a deeply nested function that isn't already in the IO monad.
- jaspervdj 3y ago
  You can use trace for that which is part of the base library: https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.19.1.0/docs/Debug-Trace.html#v:trace https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.19.1.0/docs/Debug...
  - pyrale 3y ago
    Unrelated, but many thanks for organizing Zurihac year after year.
- the_af 3y ago
  Debugging output, or just plain debugging, is often difficult regardless of the programming language. I wouldn't say this sets Haskell apart.
bazoom42 3y ago
Yeah as long as you understand how to use monads IO is easy. This is why Haskell tutorials tend to have 100 pages of dense type-theory before getting to “hello world”, while other languages have that on the first page.
- tome 3y ago
  I'm not sure which tutorials you're thinking of. Not this one I guess https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_5_steps#Write_your_first_Haskell_program https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_5_steps#Write_your_first... or this one https://riptutorial.com/haskell/example/898/hello--world- https://riptutorial.com/haskell/example/898/hello--world- Can you link to the one that has 100 pages before getting to “hello world”?
  - bazoom42 3y ago
    Learn you a Haskell gets to Hello World at page 128.
    - tome 3y ago
      Yeah, but that's not because the first 127 pages are "dense type theory". It's because that's the first time it teaches about compiled programs rather than the REPL. Besides, "Hello world" also appears on page 14. https://learnyouahaskell.com/learnyouahaskell.pdf https://learnyouahaskell.com/learnyouahaskell.pdf
- the_af 3y ago
  This is simply untrue. You can do IO without understanding what a monad is, simply taking it as "there is this keyword and this syntax I need to use". No Haskell tutorials that I know of take long to reach "hello world", which is in fact a shorter program in Haskell than in some mainstream programming languages.