3 ms·

Can you elaborate? What is it about Haskell that makes it better?

vbezhenar 10mo ago
Very advanced type system which allows to move a lot of program correctness to typing system. So basically if your program compiles, it probably works. It's also has GC which makes it better suited for most programs, compared to Rust with its manual memory management.
- ModernMech 10mo ago
  Rust does not have manual memory management, and its type system also has the property that if your program compiles it probably works, IME.
  - atilaneves 10mo ago
    I hear this about both Haskell and Rust, and yet, when I tried both in the former I wrote a useless program because I didn't handle state (and yet passed all tests!) while in the latter I immediately wrote a deadlock. So...yeah.
    - tome 10mo ago
      How did your tests pass if you didn't handle state?
      - atilaneves 10mo ago
        Because it is also possible to write tests that don't adequately capture real-life requirements. It was an MQTT server, and the tests basically went "if we have these subscriptions, then...", but no subscriptions ever got actually stored by the server.
    - ModernMech 10mo ago
      It is still possible to write bugs in both Haskell and Rust.
      - atilaneves 10mo ago
        Yes, that's my point. I'm replying to claims that "if it compiles it probably works". My limited experience with both is "nah".
        tome 10mo ago
        I prefer the slogan without "probably", "If it compiles it works", because then at least it's clear it's a slogan and not a formal claim. Everyone knows that if you write multiply x y = x + y then it will compile but not work, so they don't take it literally. But it is a pithy statement of the lived experience of many users of strongly typed programming, which is more accurately described by something like "if it compiles then it will probably do something at least basically sensible and often be pretty close to what you actually wanted".
throw-qqqqq 10mo ago
Purely functional code is easier to test because of its referential transparency and lack of shared state. Haskell is also nice because of quickcheck.

Very advanced type system which allows to move a lot of program correctness to typing system. So basically if your program compiles, it probably works. It's also has GC which makes it better suited for most programs, compared to Rust with its manual memory management.

ModernMech 10mo ago
Rust does not have manual memory management, and its type system also has the property that if your program compiles it probably works, IME.
- atilaneves 10mo ago
  I hear this about both Haskell and Rust, and yet, when I tried both in the former I wrote a useless program because I didn't handle state (and yet passed all tests!) while in the latter I immediately wrote a deadlock. So...yeah.
  - tome 10mo ago
    How did your tests pass if you didn't handle state?
    - atilaneves 10mo ago
      Because it is also possible to write tests that don't adequately capture real-life requirements. It was an MQTT server, and the tests basically went "if we have these subscriptions, then...", but no subscriptions ever got actually stored by the server.
  - ModernMech 10mo ago
    It is still possible to write bugs in both Haskell and Rust.
    - atilaneves 10mo ago
      Yes, that's my point. I'm replying to claims that "if it compiles it probably works". My limited experience with both is "nah".
      - tome 10mo ago
        I prefer the slogan without "probably", "If it compiles it works", because then at least it's clear it's a slogan and not a formal claim. Everyone knows that if you write multiply x y = x + y then it will compile but not work, so they don't take it literally. But it is a pithy statement of the lived experience of many users of strongly typed programming, which is more accurately described by something like "if it compiles then it will probably do something at least basically sensible and often be pretty close to what you actually wanted".

throw-qqqqq 10mo ago

Purely functional code is easier to test because of its referential transparency and lack of shared state. Haskell is also nice because of quickcheck.