On Sun, 2007-28-01 at 19:01 -0800, Alexy Khrabrov wrote: 
How do people stumble on Haskell?

I was working at a company I won't name on a product line that was collapsing under the weight of C++, mismanagement and the typical arch-conservatism of practicing programmers (for whom UNIX is still fresh and new).  I was burning out rapidly as I foresaw the impending collapse of the company and was trying to figure out how to regain the love I used to have for my job.

I decided that the technology we were using was part of the problem (and likely the indirect source of all the other problems like the management ones) and started looking at alternatives including Modula-3, Dylan, ML dialects, Erlang, etc.  While investigating the MLs I stumbled across a reference (somewhat disparaging) to Haskell and lazy evaluation.  I followed up on it (because the disparaging comment looked clannish to me) and looked at Haskell more closely.

At the time I rejected Haskell as being too "academic-oriented" in favour of Dylan.  Not long after that I gave up on software in general and took a nearly six-year break.  During that time, as I relocated my initial love for programming, I looked at Haskell again and it took this time.

-- 
Michael T. Richter
Email: ttmrichter@gmail.com, mtr1966@hotpop.com
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"I find many of the machines of violence very attractive. Tanks, airplanes, warships, especially aircraft carriers. And the German U-boats, submarines." --The Dalai Lama