
At risk of becoming the most hated man in all Haskelldom, I'd like to suggest that the Haskell logo not use lambda symbols. Or at least not as the central element. Sorry, I know I'm late to the party, but the thing is there is nothing distinctive about lambda; it's common to all FPLs. Besides, Lisp/Scheme already have that franchise. What is distinctive about Haskell it's use of the monad. The Pythagorean monad symbol is wonderfully simple: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monad_(Greek_philosophy)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monad_%28Greek_philosophy%29. Something might also be done with the triad to reflect the fact that the monad in cat theory is actually a triple ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triad_(Greek_philosophy)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triad_%28Greek_philosophy%29 ). The "Cup or Monad" (http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/herm/hermes4.htm), with a little bit of work, could be turned into an amusing Haskell manifesto. Lots of interesting imagery from the gnostic tradition ( http://www.sacred-texts.com/gno/th2/index.htm), although SICP seems already to have used something similar ( http://mitpress.mit.edu/images/products/books/0262011530-f30.jpg). Hermes Trismegistus = Thrice-great Hermes -> Haskell Trismegistus, Thrice-Glorious Haskell, etc. Might be too cute. There's also Leibniz' monadology - I can't think of any visual imagery to go with it, but he did end up with the "best of all possible worlds" hypothesis, which gives us a slogan sure to irritate: "Haskell - the best of all possible languages". Not to mention "Haskell Monadology" as a name for the official Haskell definition, etc. Hey, at least it isn't cute. -gregg

On 12 Mar 2009, at 15:04, Gregg Reynolds wrote:
At risk of becoming the most hated man in all Haskelldom, I'd like to suggest that the Haskell logo not use lambda symbols. Or at least not as the central element. Sorry, I know I'm late to the party, but the thing is there is nothing distinctive about lambda; it's common to all FPLs. Besides, Lisp/Scheme already have that franchise.
What is distinctive about Haskell it's use of the monad. The Pythagorean monad symbol is wonderfully simple: No, what's distinctive about Haskell is usually the abuse of the monad.
Encouraging people to think Haskell is all about monadic programming even more is a recipe for disaster. Just my 2¢ Bob

Gregg Reynolds wrote:
What is distinctive about Haskell it's use of the monad. The The Pythagorean monad symbol is wonderfully simple:
It has the added benefit that if you put a pair of those on the chest of a suitably curvy cartoon character, you've got yourself one sexy mascot.
Hey, at least it isn't cute.
De gustibus non est disputandum!
participants (3)
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Anton van Straaten
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Gregg Reynolds
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Thomas Davie