I understand that this is very much a work-in-progress. But we have to also come to the realization that there's people forming "industrial groups" and such around Haskell, and trying very earnestly to show that it's worth looking into for serious practical applications.
I do believe that it's important to point out where there is work that needs to be done to meet all the goals that Haskell wants to achieve such that the selling points aren't possibly construed by the audience as disingenuous claims.
Now having said that, this is *not* meant to be a slap in the face of those who want Haskell to be used in a practical way *now*. I am in fact one of them, having created code that has shipped and will continue to ship (at least until I'm forced to rewrite it... let's hope not) in Haskell in management systems that may, if our plans work out, be deployed potentially all over the world.
Dave
On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 6:50 AM, John D. Earle
<JohnDEarle@cox.net> wrote:
David, think of the machine as being the earth and laziness is in the clouds. Strict evaluation is closer to the machine. The relationship between a lazy algorithm and the earth is abstract; hence, it will make creating algorithms especially efficient ones difficult. All of this is still a work in progress. The Haskell creed appears to be, This is the way so stick to it! The idea appears to be that by sticking to the program the problems will be overcome in time and we will be left with all the glorious goodness. At one time it was not possible to achieve the sort of efficiency that Haskell achieves as a matter of course.