andrewcoppin:
Michael Vanier wrote:
Awesome!
I'm reminded of the IRC post that said that "Haskell is bad, it makes you hate other languages."
How true it is...
I've often thought about a sort of "elevator pitch" for Haskell. However, every time I sit down to think about this, I come to the same conclusion: Haskell isn't "ready" yet. It's sad but it's true. Think about it; if you're a normal programmer trying to write real-world programs, the very first things you're likely to want to do include:
* Create sophisticated GUIs.
gtk2hs
* Read and write standard binary file formats. (Images, compressed files, etc.)
Data.Binary, along with the host of *Codec* libs now on hackage.
* Talk to a database.
There's 10 or so database libraries
* Use various network protocols (possibly custom, possibly standardised).
See Data.Binary, and hackage.
* Access the Windoze registry and play with COM stuff.
Harder, though people do do this on occasion.
* Get system-specific file information (protection bits, modification times, security information, etc.)
System.*
* Query the OS. (How many CPUs? How much RAM? What is my IP address?)
System.*
I don't know how to do any of that in Haskell. Some of it can be done, just not very easily. Other items are, AFAIK, impossible.
All very doable, most trivially. Just not widely described in tutorials, perhaps? -- Don