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Am I the only one who never tried Haskell but who when reading discussion about it ends up thinking real-world (with GHC extensions) Haskell has way too much (s

Am I the only one who never tried Haskell but who when reading discussion about it ends up thinking real-world (with GHC extensions) Haskell has way too much (sometimes historical) cruft? It really detracts me from it.

kreetx 2y ago
What cruft?
- tasuki 2y ago
  The standard library is atrocious, mainly I believe for historical reasons: - map only works on Lists (one needs fmap for functors) - head throwing exceptions instead of returning Maybe - dependent types bolted on later: they're much nicer in Idris
  - kreetx 2y ago
    - map is easier on newcomers. Once you you understand functor, you'll remember to use fmap anyway. Also, I still use map for lists after 10+ years. - I don't fully understand this, but do you mean that every `IO a` function would be better off being `IO (Maybe a)`? - AFAIK, there are no dependent types in Haskell yet, but say that the type level programming you can do today is what you mean then you are already in quite advanced territory. Yeah, I guess it could be more polished.
    - tasuki 2y ago
      I mean that `head` should be `List a -> Maybe a` rather than `List a -> a`. If you really really want an `a`, you should provide `NonEmptyList a` or something.
      - tromp 2y ago
        Haskell provides https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.21.0.0/docs/Data-List-NonEmpty.html https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.21.0.0/docs/Data-...
      - kreetx 2y ago
        I agree! The current `head` should be renamed `unsafeHead` (or something), and the new `head` should have the type you wrote.
  - tome 2y ago
    > head throwing exceptions instead of returning Maybe The choice is keep it is it is, or change it. Changing it would break vast amounts of existing code. Which option do you prefer?
    - kqr 2y ago
      I think this was given as an example of necessary-but-annoying cruft, not as a suggestion for change.
  - simonmic 2y ago
    “atrocious” ? I don’t think that’s any Haskeller’s experience. We can point to a few things we’d like to be different for modern Haskell dev, which are slow to improve because of legacy etc, and a certain fragmentation across different packages, but relatively speaking, base and other core libs provide a wealth of high quality, well documented, principled utilities.
- EE84M3i 2y ago
  Exceptions n+k patterns Lazy IO
Vosporos 2y ago
It's a thirty year-old language, it's bound to have cruft. However modern codebases tend to showcase a pretty efficient combination of language features, oftentimes optimised for productivity rather than research in lazy FP. Such codebases are https://github.com/flora-pm/flora-server https://github.com/flora-pm/flora-server or https://github.com/change-metrics/monocle https://github.com/change-metrics/monocle
asplake 2y ago
Am I right in thinking that there are efforts to provide a better out-of-the-box experience, with some of that cruft dealt with for people who don't need the backwards compatibility? For myself, I found long prologues of extensions/options/whatever massively off-putting.
- mrkeen 2y ago
  Sure, use {-# LANGUAGE GHC2024 #-}
  - revskill 2y ago
    Nice.
  - asplake 2y ago
    Thanks. https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/proposals/0613-ghc2024.rst https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/p... As I write, its links to ghc.gitlab.haskell.org are all broken.
    - tome 2y ago
      Thanks for the report. I don't see any broken links to gitlab. I tried the first three and a random one. Could you point out the ones that are broken for you?
      - asplake 2y ago
        Works on mobile, not via my ISP (Virgin, UK). I guess it will resolve itself
aranchelk 2y ago
In practice it only detracts a little bit. You can enable GHC extensions project-wide and there are alternate standard libraries (preludes) that are more modern. If you want a language that is very Haskell-like without the historical baggage or the laziness, PureScript is very good. It’s main compile target is JavaScript, so it’s built for different use cases.

kreetx 2y ago

What cruft?

tasuki 2y ago
The standard library is atrocious, mainly I believe for historical reasons: - map only works on Lists (one needs fmap for functors) - head throwing exceptions instead of returning Maybe - dependent types bolted on later: they're much nicer in Idris
- kreetx 2y ago
  - map is easier on newcomers. Once you you understand functor, you'll remember to use fmap anyway. Also, I still use map for lists after 10+ years. - I don't fully understand this, but do you mean that every `IO a` function would be better off being `IO (Maybe a)`? - AFAIK, there are no dependent types in Haskell yet, but say that the type level programming you can do today is what you mean then you are already in quite advanced territory. Yeah, I guess it could be more polished.
  - tasuki 2y ago
    I mean that `head` should be `List a -> Maybe a` rather than `List a -> a`. If you really really want an `a`, you should provide `NonEmptyList a` or something.
    - tromp 2y ago
      Haskell provides https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.21.0.0/docs/Data-List-NonEmpty.html https://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.21.0.0/docs/Data-...
    - kreetx 2y ago
      I agree! The current `head` should be renamed `unsafeHead` (or something), and the new `head` should have the type you wrote.
- tome 2y ago
  > head throwing exceptions instead of returning Maybe The choice is keep it is it is, or change it. Changing it would break vast amounts of existing code. Which option do you prefer?
  - kqr 2y ago
    I think this was given as an example of necessary-but-annoying cruft, not as a suggestion for change.
- simonmic 2y ago
  “atrocious” ? I don’t think that’s any Haskeller’s experience. We can point to a few things we’d like to be different for modern Haskell dev, which are slow to improve because of legacy etc, and a certain fragmentation across different packages, but relatively speaking, base and other core libs provide a wealth of high quality, well documented, principled utilities.
EE84M3i 2y ago
Exceptions n+k patterns Lazy IO

Vosporos 2y ago

It's a thirty year-old language, it's bound to have cruft. However modern codebases tend to showcase a pretty efficient combination of language features, oftentimes optimised for productivity rather than research in lazy FP. Such codebases are https://github.com/flora-pm/flora-server https://github.com/flora-pm/flora-server or https://github.com/change-metrics/monocle https://github.com/change-metrics/monocle

asplake 2y ago

Am I right in thinking that there are efforts to provide a better out-of-the-box experience, with some of that cruft dealt with for people who don't need the backwards compatibility? For myself, I found long prologues of extensions/options/whatever massively off-putting.

mrkeen 2y ago
Sure, use {-# LANGUAGE GHC2024 #-}
- revskill 2y ago
  Nice.
- asplake 2y ago
  Thanks. https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/proposals/0613-ghc2024.rst https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals/blob/master/p... As I write, its links to ghc.gitlab.haskell.org are all broken.
  - tome 2y ago
    Thanks for the report. I don't see any broken links to gitlab. I tried the first three and a random one. Could you point out the ones that are broken for you?
    - asplake 2y ago
      Works on mobile, not via my ISP (Virgin, UK). I guess it will resolve itself

aranchelk 2y ago

In practice it only detracts a little bit. You can enable GHC extensions project-wide and there are alternate standard libraries (preludes) that are more modern. If you want a language that is very Haskell-like without the historical baggage or the laziness, PureScript is very good. It’s main compile target is JavaScript, so it’s built for different use cases.