7 ms·

While Stack is still young software it is amazing to see how Haskell went from having sub-par build tooling, to something that pretty much trumphs all build too

by cies 11y ago

While Stack is still young software it is amazing to see how Haskell went from having sub-par build tooling, to something that pretty much trumphs all build tooling I've ever worked with. And all of this happened in about one or two years. I totally see how this language and it's ecosystem are going to be the next big thing in programming. Ultra highlevel and very compact code that compiles to relatively fast native code. Purely functional and strong type system guarantees to help refactoring the most complex codebases. It is a hell of a secret weapon for startups.

demilicious 11y ago
Could you explain this a little more? What new build tooling has been developed for Haskell recently (other than the parent link)? One of the things that keeps me from revisiting Haskell was the aforementioned subpar build tooling. That's one of the reasons I'm enjoying Golang so much.
- cies 11y ago
  Sure... Stackage: curated sets of packages that are known to work together. LTS Haskell: Stackage + pinning to a GHC version + seperating non-breaking upgrades (minor LTS version increases) from breaking ones (major increases). SSL downloading. Stack: also downloading/building of GHC if it does not exists, understands mega-repo's (many packages in one git repo), eases working with shared local pools of packages, eases working with dependencies that are not in Stackage/LTS, and more that I probably forget. A more detailed explanation of the merits of Stack can be found in this video: http://begriffs.com/posts/2015-06-22-haskell-stack-build-tool.html http://begriffs.com/posts/2015-06-22-haskell-stack-build-too...
  - justthistime_ 11y ago
    Isn't that all basic stuff SBT did for years already?
    - reagency 11y ago
      What is SBT? But yes, these are all table stakes that Haskell has been lagging on, in part because Haskell library versions break compatibility very frequently, and Haskell has a very non-local/modular way of building source.
      - girvo 11y ago
        SBT is the Scala build tool (hence the name, I guess) if I recall correctly.
  - zak_mc_kracken 11y ago
    So basically everything that's been available on the JVM for more than ten years. I understand your excitement to finally have that if you didn't beforehand, but this is pretty old stuff.
    - oconnor0 11y ago
      What about that has the JVM had for years?
- bjt 11y ago
  'cabal sandbox' came out like, a year ago? That was a huge improvement for my Haskell development experience, allowing local isolated environments like you get from npm or virtualenv.
kazinator 11y ago
Trumps all build tooling? Can I take any GNU Make project and replace the build tool with Stack?
- cies 11y ago
  I notice now I cut some corners. I meant language specific tooling for resolving/downloading dependencies, building and installing. Sorry for the confusion.
- cauterize 11y ago
  No, but you might with Shake: http://shakebuild.com/ http://shakebuild.com/
zak_mc_kracken 11y ago
> It is a hell of a secret weapon for startups. So secret that hardly any startups use it and hardly anyone has open positions for Haskell jobs... You have your work cut out for you :-)
- codygman 11y ago
  > hardly anyone has open positions for Haskell jobs They do exist (many but not all are mainly Haskell positions): http://jobsearch.monster.com/search/programmer_5?q=haskell http://jobsearch.monster.com/search/programmer_5?q=haskell http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?searchTerm=haskell http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?searchTerm=haskell
- mightybyte 11y ago
  JP Morgan [1], Standard Chartered [2], Skedge.me [3], Soostone [4], and Facebook [5] have all advertised open Haskell positions recently. And those are just the ones that come to mind immediately. [1] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2015-June/120055.html https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2015-June/12... [2] https://donsbot.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/haskell-dev-role-in-strats-at-standard-chartered-london/ https://donsbot.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/haskell-dev-role-in... [3] http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/32ydm7/haskell_jobs_100_ghc_haskell_no_ruby_scala_php_c/ http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/32ydm7/haskell_jobs... [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9473292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9473292 [5] http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2useoq/haskell_opportunities_at_facebook/ http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2useoq/haskell_oppo...
  - r0naa 11y ago
    This is exciting news but the company you mentioned do not really qualify as "startups" though.
    - akurilin 11y ago
      A couple of them mentioned here just for the Bay: http://www.wagonhq.com/blog/bayhac http://www.wagonhq.com/blog/bayhac . Hope we still qualify as a startup!
mightybyte 11y ago
> I totally see how this language and it's ecosystem are going to be the next big thing in programming. I agree and it seems like 2015 has seen a substantial increase in interest in Haskell. The NY Haskell meetup group has seen a steadily increasing number of group joins this year. Both of the last two months have had a record number of new signups and have been more than double the median. I don't know what is causing the increased interest, but it's clearly not an isolated spike.
- LukeHoersten 11y ago
  We've seen big growth and interest in the Chicago Haskell group as well.
  - michaelochurch 11y ago
    We've seen big growth and interest in the Chicago Haskell group as well. I'll support Luke's claim. We've had over 30 people for the last two meetups (in March and May). There's a lot of interest in the next Meetup (July or August, depending on speaker availability). I'm also planning to do a beginner Haskell class (assuming programming experience, but no Haskell experience) in Chicago around November over a couple of weekends. I'm writing a summer class that my company will use, and I'm planning to convert that to a weekend workshop (probably 2 weekends, realistically) in the fall.
    - LukeHoersten 11y ago
      Very much thanks to your efforts, Michael!
- cies 11y ago
  Also the http://reddit.com/r/haskell http://reddit.com/r/haskell increased a lot over the last few years.

by cies 11y ago

demilicious 11y ago

Could you explain this a little more? What new build tooling has been developed for Haskell recently (other than the parent link)? One of the things that keeps me from revisiting Haskell was the aforementioned subpar build tooling. That's one of the reasons I'm enjoying Golang so much.

cies 11y ago
Sure... Stackage: curated sets of packages that are known to work together. LTS Haskell: Stackage + pinning to a GHC version + seperating non-breaking upgrades (minor LTS version increases) from breaking ones (major increases). SSL downloading. Stack: also downloading/building of GHC if it does not exists, understands mega-repo's (many packages in one git repo), eases working with shared local pools of packages, eases working with dependencies that are not in Stackage/LTS, and more that I probably forget. A more detailed explanation of the merits of Stack can be found in this video: http://begriffs.com/posts/2015-06-22-haskell-stack-build-tool.html http://begriffs.com/posts/2015-06-22-haskell-stack-build-too...
- justthistime_ 11y ago
  Isn't that all basic stuff SBT did for years already?
  - reagency 11y ago
    What is SBT? But yes, these are all table stakes that Haskell has been lagging on, in part because Haskell library versions break compatibility very frequently, and Haskell has a very non-local/modular way of building source.
    - girvo 11y ago
      SBT is the Scala build tool (hence the name, I guess) if I recall correctly.
- zak_mc_kracken 11y ago
  So basically everything that's been available on the JVM for more than ten years. I understand your excitement to finally have that if you didn't beforehand, but this is pretty old stuff.
  - oconnor0 11y ago
    What about that has the JVM had for years?
bjt 11y ago
'cabal sandbox' came out like, a year ago? That was a huge improvement for my Haskell development experience, allowing local isolated environments like you get from npm or virtualenv.

kazinator 11y ago

Trumps all build tooling? Can I take any GNU Make project and replace the build tool with Stack?

cies 11y ago
I notice now I cut some corners. I meant language specific tooling for resolving/downloading dependencies, building and installing. Sorry for the confusion.
cauterize 11y ago
No, but you might with Shake: http://shakebuild.com/ http://shakebuild.com/

zak_mc_kracken 11y ago

> It is a hell of a secret weapon for startups. So secret that hardly any startups use it and hardly anyone has open positions for Haskell jobs... You have your work cut out for you :-)

codygman 11y ago
> hardly anyone has open positions for Haskell jobs They do exist (many but not all are mainly Haskell positions): http://jobsearch.monster.com/search/programmer_5?q=haskell http://jobsearch.monster.com/search/programmer_5?q=haskell http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?searchTerm=haskell http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?searchTerm=haskell
mightybyte 11y ago
JP Morgan [1], Standard Chartered [2], Skedge.me [3], Soostone [4], and Facebook [5] have all advertised open Haskell positions recently. And those are just the ones that come to mind immediately. [1] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2015-June/120055.html https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2015-June/12... [2] https://donsbot.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/haskell-dev-role-in-strats-at-standard-chartered-london/ https://donsbot.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/haskell-dev-role-in... [3] http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/32ydm7/haskell_jobs_100_ghc_haskell_no_ruby_scala_php_c/ http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/32ydm7/haskell_jobs... [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9473292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9473292 [5] http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2useoq/haskell_opportunities_at_facebook/ http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2useoq/haskell_oppo...
- r0naa 11y ago
  This is exciting news but the company you mentioned do not really qualify as "startups" though.
  - akurilin 11y ago
    A couple of them mentioned here just for the Bay: http://www.wagonhq.com/blog/bayhac http://www.wagonhq.com/blog/bayhac . Hope we still qualify as a startup!

mightybyte 11y ago

> I totally see how this language and it's ecosystem are going to be the next big thing in programming. I agree and it seems like 2015 has seen a substantial increase in interest in Haskell. The NY Haskell meetup group has seen a steadily increasing number of group joins this year. Both of the last two months have had a record number of new signups and have been more than double the median. I don't know what is causing the increased interest, but it's clearly not an isolated spike.

LukeHoersten 11y ago
We've seen big growth and interest in the Chicago Haskell group as well.
- michaelochurch 11y ago
  We've seen big growth and interest in the Chicago Haskell group as well. I'll support Luke's claim. We've had over 30 people for the last two meetups (in March and May). There's a lot of interest in the next Meetup (July or August, depending on speaker availability). I'm also planning to do a beginner Haskell class (assuming programming experience, but no Haskell experience) in Chicago around November over a couple of weekends. I'm writing a summer class that my company will use, and I'm planning to convert that to a weekend workshop (probably 2 weekends, realistically) in the fall.
  - LukeHoersten 11y ago
    Very much thanks to your efforts, Michael!
cies 11y ago
Also the http://reddit.com/r/haskell http://reddit.com/r/haskell increased a lot over the last few years.