4 ms·

I get the desire, but you'll never be able to popularize Haskell because the only people who want to use it are math majors, and most web devs are not math majo

by RyanZAG 13y ago

I get the desire, but you'll never be able to popularize Haskell because the only people who want to use it are math majors, and most web devs are not math majors. If you want to popularize Haskell you'll need to rework the syntax at the very least.

coolsunglasses 13y ago
The syntax isn't the primary difficulty for a beginner by any means.
codygman 13y ago
> the only people who want to use it are math majors Edit: This is FUD and I kind of feel offended by it, though I'm not sure that is rational I'm not a math major. I am a web dev. I want to use Haskell (and am using in a smaller capacity) because it means I have to be up late fixing things less. It means that I can worry about my sites getting hacked less because of the strong static typing guarantees which protect me against csrf. On top of all that type annotations are great for documenting things. On top of that, composing functions and monads can allow you to do things much safer and much more quickly. There are many teaching resources which show how some of Haskell's perceived cons can be pros such as these: http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Haskell-the-Hard-Way/ http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Haskell-the-Hard-Way... http://book.realworldhaskell.org/ http://book.realworldhaskell.org/ http://learnyouahaskell.com/ http://learnyouahaskell.com/ http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_monads_in_pictures.html http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_... (with web dev applicable example) http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_Hours http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_H... Honestly from my experiences in #haskell on freenode, /r/haskell, and Haskell related content on the web it seems like many more people are using it with the intent to make "real world software". I haven't gotten the ivory tower vibe from anyone in the Haskell community yet. Quite the opposite actually, everyone seems very pragmatic.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  The syntax for "record types" - elements of named tuples - is really awkward and pollute namespace. I.e., if I want a module in my app to have two different types containing an element 'customerID' that I'd like to refer by name in that context, then it's a bit painful - and it is a really common need if I need to quickly make a mostly-CRUD webapp, for which otherwise Haskell/Yesod would be as practical as Ruby/Rails.
  - carterschonwald 13y ago
    There are a few different solutions to the record name space problem that are due to land in the next year. And already some decent lens based solutions too.
  - Fixnum 13y ago
    It's being fixed. http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1rpte3/explanation_of_the_new_haskell_records_extension/ http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1rpte3/explanation_...
- pekk 13y ago
  Most frameworks protect you against CSRF, that is not unique to Haskell. Other languages also allow you to check your work using tests and static checks.
  - codygman 13y ago
    I would argue that it isn't quite the same, since with Haskell you can enforce it with the type system. While other frameworks are great pieces of engineering and usually well tested, Haskell is nothing without it's type system therefore tons of work is put towards ensuring that what the type system says is true, is true. The other thing is I believe frameworks like Yesod use property based testing which IME catches a lot more than unit tests by themselves. I feel like my point is unclear here, perhaps someone more experienced with Haskell and/or Yesod can articulate it better than I can.
nnq 13y ago
The syntax is not the problem for Haskell gaining acceptance for web dev. Most web devs are frightened by functional programming idioms and will run away screaming when exposed to monads. But the biggest problem imho is the type system that while great, makes things like making simple structs / named tupples or whatever you want to call them annoying and the lack of any "nice" way to just do OOP in it - and no, saying OOP is a bad idea and pretending it doesn't exist doesn't work. Scala is a good Haskell for web dev. But it's too complex and has no chance of broad adoption against Node/Javascript, Ruby, Python and even PHP frameworks because for 90% of devs it simply doesn't bring anything good enough to make it worth putting up with the complexities stemming from the unholy OOP+FP mix.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - klrr 13y ago
    Sorry, actually thought you were trolling when you first said only math major use it and then made it sound like the syntax was the reason for. The core points in your criticism is known though, and basically apply to any other language. Most language with new concepts and new syntax will be difficult to learn if you already are used to another language. Especially if the language is almost the opposite of the one you learn. Imperative language are about writing how and writing functionally is about writing what. Widely different mindset is needed to accomplish many tasks. Recursion being one thing, monadic computation being another. One thing many people coming from OOP to Haskell have a hard time with is that they write new classes when what they really want is new datatypes. In the end you win when you've learnt a language such as Haskell though, cause even if you won't write production code in it you will learn a lot of useful practices you can apply to everyday programming. Also you will have a new language to write your side projects in. ;)
    - kazagistar 13y ago
      > In the end you win when you've learnt a language such as Haskell though, cause even if you won't write production code in it you will learn a lot of useful practices you can apply to everyday programming. This is why I hopefully trudge on, even though the further I get into haskell, the more hope I lose of this being true.
klrr 13y ago
Clearly a troll, down-vote and move along.
Mikeb85 13y ago
Please, if you've ever taken even an introductory college math course you'll understand Haskell's syntax. Heck, it's not that hard to reason about even if you haven't...

by RyanZAG 13y ago

coolsunglasses 13y ago

The syntax isn't the primary difficulty for a beginner by any means.

codygman 13y ago

> the only people who want to use it are math majors Edit: This is FUD and I kind of feel offended by it, though I'm not sure that is rational I'm not a math major. I am a web dev. I want to use Haskell (and am using in a smaller capacity) because it means I have to be up late fixing things less. It means that I can worry about my sites getting hacked less because of the strong static typing guarantees which protect me against csrf. On top of all that type annotations are great for documenting things. On top of that, composing functions and monads can allow you to do things much safer and much more quickly. There are many teaching resources which show how some of Haskell's perceived cons can be pros such as these: http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Haskell-the-Hard-Way/ http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Haskell-the-Hard-Way... http://book.realworldhaskell.org/ http://book.realworldhaskell.org/ http://learnyouahaskell.com/ http://learnyouahaskell.com/ http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_monads_in_pictures.html http://adit.io/posts/2013-04-17-functors,_applicatives,_and_... (with web dev applicable example) http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_Hours http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_H... Honestly from my experiences in #haskell on freenode, /r/haskell, and Haskell related content on the web it seems like many more people are using it with the intent to make "real world software". I haven't gotten the ivory tower vibe from anyone in the Haskell community yet. Quite the opposite actually, everyone seems very pragmatic.

PeterisP 13y ago
The syntax for "record types" - elements of named tuples - is really awkward and pollute namespace. I.e., if I want a module in my app to have two different types containing an element 'customerID' that I'd like to refer by name in that context, then it's a bit painful - and it is a really common need if I need to quickly make a mostly-CRUD webapp, for which otherwise Haskell/Yesod would be as practical as Ruby/Rails.
- carterschonwald 13y ago
  There are a few different solutions to the record name space problem that are due to land in the next year. And already some decent lens based solutions too.
- Fixnum 13y ago
  It's being fixed. http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1rpte3/explanation_of_the_new_haskell_records_extension/ http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1rpte3/explanation_...
pekk 13y ago
Most frameworks protect you against CSRF, that is not unique to Haskell. Other languages also allow you to check your work using tests and static checks.
- codygman 13y ago
  I would argue that it isn't quite the same, since with Haskell you can enforce it with the type system. While other frameworks are great pieces of engineering and usually well tested, Haskell is nothing without it's type system therefore tons of work is put towards ensuring that what the type system says is true, is true. The other thing is I believe frameworks like Yesod use property based testing which IME catches a lot more than unit tests by themselves. I feel like my point is unclear here, perhaps someone more experienced with Haskell and/or Yesod can articulate it better than I can.

nnq 13y ago

The syntax is not the problem for Haskell gaining acceptance for web dev. Most web devs are frightened by functional programming idioms and will run away screaming when exposed to monads. But the biggest problem imho is the type system that while great, makes things like making simple structs / named tupples or whatever you want to call them annoying and the lack of any "nice" way to just do OOP in it - and no, saying OOP is a bad idea and pretending it doesn't exist doesn't work. Scala is a good Haskell for web dev. But it's too complex and has no chance of broad adoption against Node/Javascript, Ruby, Python and even PHP frameworks because for 90% of devs it simply doesn't bring anything good enough to make it worth putting up with the complexities stemming from the unholy OOP+FP mix.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- klrr 13y ago
  Sorry, actually thought you were trolling when you first said only math major use it and then made it sound like the syntax was the reason for. The core points in your criticism is known though, and basically apply to any other language. Most language with new concepts and new syntax will be difficult to learn if you already are used to another language. Especially if the language is almost the opposite of the one you learn. Imperative language are about writing how and writing functionally is about writing what. Widely different mindset is needed to accomplish many tasks. Recursion being one thing, monadic computation being another. One thing many people coming from OOP to Haskell have a hard time with is that they write new classes when what they really want is new datatypes. In the end you win when you've learnt a language such as Haskell though, cause even if you won't write production code in it you will learn a lot of useful practices you can apply to everyday programming. Also you will have a new language to write your side projects in. ;)
  - kazagistar 13y ago
    > In the end you win when you've learnt a language such as Haskell though, cause even if you won't write production code in it you will learn a lot of useful practices you can apply to everyday programming. This is why I hopefully trudge on, even though the further I get into haskell, the more hope I lose of this being true.

klrr 13y ago

Clearly a troll, down-vote and move along.

Mikeb85 13y ago

Please, if you've ever taken even an introductory college math course you'll understand Haskell's syntax. Heck, it's not that hard to reason about even if you haven't...