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Yes, it's very important that people who work in the language be able to read and understand it easily. It is not, however, important that people who do not wor

Yes, it's very important that people who work in the language be able to read and understand it easily. It is not, however, important that people who do not work in the language be able to do so. The most persistent critique of Haskell is that it is hard to understand for people who haven't learned it. This is as reasonable as critiquing Java because it is hard to understand for people who do not know how to program. You're welcome to claim that Haskell has a larger barrier to entry, but that is a fundamentally different claim from the claim that operators make the language harder to read for practitioners. I have been attempting to refute the latter claim, using my experience discussing the issue with said practitioners. If you want to discuss the former claim, I'm happy to do that as well, but you have to acknowledge that it is a separate claim and be clear about what it is you actually mean.

tormeh 12y ago
>Yes, it's very important that people who work in the language be able to read and understand it easily. It is not, however, important that people who do not work in the language be able to do so. Well, I guess we disagree there. And remember that some people may only work a little bit in a language, and it matters, to them, how much time they need to get into the groove with a language. Once you work enough in a language you get used to all the weirdness anyway, which is how you end up with people claiming C++ and PHP are actually kinda neat languages. The only good judges of language syntax are people who have never seen that syntax before.
- nbouscal 12y ago
  I think the exact opposite: the only good judges of syntax are people who understand the semantics deeply enough to understand whether the syntax accurately reflects them. It's all well and good to say that people should be able to bounce around between languages within a paradigm. A Rubyist should be able to read Python, Perl, and PHP, sure. A Java programmer should be able to read C++ and C#. Claiming that people should be able to read any programming language, though, means that languages aren't allowed to explore significantly different semantics. A JavaScript programmer isn't going to be able to pick up something written in Prolog or Forth and quickly understand exactly what's going on, and that's as it should be. The whole point of having multiple paradigms is that they can express different ideas and ways of approaching problems. So, I agree that an SML or OCaml programmer should be able to "get into the groove" with Haskell quickly. In my experience, this is usually the case.
- platz 12y ago
  It's not just syntax. If the semantics and design patterns are different, then no matter if you call it (>>=) or bind, you won't be any closer to understanding the code; this is the "people who do not work in the language" part. Would you expect to understand Forth or other concatenative languages even if all the operators are named? The new set of semantics and patterns are the part that take time to understand. The syntax is not really the actual stumbling block.

tormeh 12y ago

>Yes, it's very important that people who work in the language be able to read and understand it easily. It is not, however, important that people who do not work in the language be able to do so. Well, I guess we disagree there. And remember that some people may only work a little bit in a language, and it matters, to them, how much time they need to get into the groove with a language. Once you work enough in a language you get used to all the weirdness anyway, which is how you end up with people claiming C++ and PHP are actually kinda neat languages. The only good judges of language syntax are people who have never seen that syntax before.

nbouscal 12y ago
I think the exact opposite: the only good judges of syntax are people who understand the semantics deeply enough to understand whether the syntax accurately reflects them. It's all well and good to say that people should be able to bounce around between languages within a paradigm. A Rubyist should be able to read Python, Perl, and PHP, sure. A Java programmer should be able to read C++ and C#. Claiming that people should be able to read any programming language, though, means that languages aren't allowed to explore significantly different semantics. A JavaScript programmer isn't going to be able to pick up something written in Prolog or Forth and quickly understand exactly what's going on, and that's as it should be. The whole point of having multiple paradigms is that they can express different ideas and ways of approaching problems. So, I agree that an SML or OCaml programmer should be able to "get into the groove" with Haskell quickly. In my experience, this is usually the case.
platz 12y ago
It's not just syntax. If the semantics and design patterns are different, then no matter if you call it (>>=) or bind, you won't be any closer to understanding the code; this is the "people who do not work in the language" part. Would you expect to understand Forth or other concatenative languages even if all the operators are named? The new set of semantics and patterns are the part that take time to understand. The syntax is not really the actual stumbling block.