Name: Anonymous 2009-11-24 22:19
The idea is that you can split up the program in parallel tasks in a fully automated way. If you as a programmer even have to think about parallelizing, I’m sorry, but then your compiler is “doin’ it wrong” and your languages is from the stone age. ^^
An a bonus, when you can completely rely on a function with the same input producing the same output, you can also throw caching in there algorithmically (where required, on-demand, whatever you wish)
But bla... that is all just the stuff on the surface. Like explaining the pointlessness of “metaprogramming” when there stops being a difference between data and code.
I find the most amazing thing about Haskell as it is today, is that things that need the addition of new constructs to the language and a big change in the compiler, are just your normal library in Haskell. It can look like a whole new language. But it’s just a library. And that is amazing!
Then, when you get to the GHC extensions, things that are as much on the forefront of Informatics science as the LHC on physics, with everybody else copying it years later... Sorry, but if you like elegance in programming, ...I just have no words for it...
The thing is, that it’s crazy hard to learn. Which is not a fault in language design. Because it’s very elegant. It’s simply the fact that it is so far ahead of anything in your everyday language. You won’t expect to sit in a spaceship and drive it like your car too, would you? Or program the LHC like a VCR.
Yes, I am a fan. Even if I sometimes hate it for being so damn smart compared to me the normal programmer. But I became so much a better programmer in all other languages, it’s crazy.
It’s simply a completely different class of skill. And that is why one should learn Haskell. Fuck the “Oh, we’re now only coding in Haskell” attitude. When you really understand the ideas behind it, every language becomes Haskell. And you can write practically bug-free programs of...
Aaah, what am I saying. <John Cleese>Oh it’s driving me mad... MAD!</John Cleese> *slams cleaver into the table*
*head developer comes in*
Head developer: Easy, Mungo, easy... Mungo... *clutches his head in agony* the war wound!... the wound... the wouuund...
Manager: This is the end! The end! Aaargh!! *stabs himself with a steel lambda sculpture*
An a bonus, when you can completely rely on a function with the same input producing the same output, you can also throw caching in there algorithmically (where required, on-demand, whatever you wish)
But bla... that is all just the stuff on the surface. Like explaining the pointlessness of “metaprogramming” when there stops being a difference between data and code.
I find the most amazing thing about Haskell as it is today, is that things that need the addition of new constructs to the language and a big change in the compiler, are just your normal library in Haskell. It can look like a whole new language. But it’s just a library. And that is amazing!
Then, when you get to the GHC extensions, things that are as much on the forefront of Informatics science as the LHC on physics, with everybody else copying it years later... Sorry, but if you like elegance in programming, ...I just have no words for it...
The thing is, that it’s crazy hard to learn. Which is not a fault in language design. Because it’s very elegant. It’s simply the fact that it is so far ahead of anything in your everyday language. You won’t expect to sit in a spaceship and drive it like your car too, would you? Or program the LHC like a VCR.
Yes, I am a fan. Even if I sometimes hate it for being so damn smart compared to me the normal programmer. But I became so much a better programmer in all other languages, it’s crazy.
It’s simply a completely different class of skill. And that is why one should learn Haskell. Fuck the “Oh, we’re now only coding in Haskell” attitude. When you really understand the ideas behind it, every language becomes Haskell. And you can write practically bug-free programs of...
Aaah, what am I saying. <John Cleese>Oh it’s driving me mad... MAD!</John Cleese> *slams cleaver into the table*
*head developer comes in*
Head developer: Easy, Mungo, easy... Mungo... *clutches his head in agony* the war wound!... the wound... the wouuund...
Manager: This is the end! The end! Aaargh!! *stabs himself with a steel lambda sculpture*