John Goerzen (jgoerzen@complete.org) wrote:
I think the two main things to do that would be:
1. Write Haskell code that has a wide appeal (example: darcs)
Agree. One individual wrote an application of the (very) general interest 'educating' programmers about Haskell's adequacy as a general programming language (there are now several people contributing to the project and some are even learning Haskell because of that :-)
2. Fix Haskell weaknesses
Haskell weaknesses are things I've mentioned here before, and refer generally to documentation and breadth of the standard library (or ease of finding/installing additional packages).
This one requires, imho, some organized effort to be really successful.
The Cabal people are working on the library problem. I am too, by writing a bunch of code and also integrating a bunch of other code.
I recently found out about your library and hope to be able to use it effectively when my skills become more developed.
Three of us also have a very rough start on a hands-on, practical introduction to Haskell aimed at the experienced imperative programmer.
This is *very* important - bringing new people from the imperative (I do not mean they should be 'converted' at any cost :-) camp by showing them how Haskell can be very elegant solution for solving general programming problems and than one does not require to hold a Ph.D. in a CS to be qualified to program in Haskell. There is plenty of theoretical work in the form of different papers, thesis etc. dealing with the plethora of Haskell-related subjects, but to 'bring Haskell to the masses', we need some more practicality. Hoping that Haskell community can recognize that more programmers can benefit them, so let's welcoem them. Sincerely, Gour -- Registered Linux User | #278493 GPG Public Key | 8C44EDCD