John A. De Goes wrote:

Hi Austin,

How do you know it's not your experience with FFI code that isn't

biased? As far as I know, there has been no systematic attempt to

document whether pure Haskell or FFI-based libraries are better designed

and better maintained. Which means your statements come from your

experience, and my statements come from my experience, and the truth is

probably somewhere in between.

In my experience, FFI code is often based on bulk translation of C

header files into the IO monad. It requires an exact version of a

library to work (usually much older than the current), it does not

compile out of the box, there's scant documentation, and very little

high-level design has been imposed on the low-level C interface (may as

well use C!). Exceptions to this rule, there are, but as I said before,

my experience leads me to believe they *are* exceptions to a *general* rule.

Which libraries are you talking about?  I haven't ever used *any* like

that, as far as I know.

Current libraries almost always do build right out of the box with

standard cabal commands.

Maybe part of what you state was accurate a few years ago, but right now?

As far as selection bias is concerned, that would apply equally well to

both of us, would it not?

-- John