Hello, I think Dejan has written in a good spirit and has many cogent points, especially for example with regard to Python. I guess the bottom line is don't be too think-skinned about what seems to me to be constructive criticism. In the FPL community, it is easy to maintain a siege mentality. Before I worked at Microsoft Hotmail. I asked one person (well known) who does research at Microsoft Research on Haskell. I asked him if any projects inside Microsoft were implemented using Haskell and he said no. Of course, this is not his fault. Management has to see that they are not going "out on a limb" to use FPLs. I know that Sun wrote at least one tool in Scheme (albeit it doesn't have ref. transparency). Regards, Bill Halchin

From: "Dejan Jelovic" To: CC: Subject: Re: "Lambda Dance", Haskell polemic, etc. on O'Reilly site Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 22:02:29 +0200

Jerzy Karczmarczuk wrote:

...

Over and over again the same silly song, by a person who - visibly - had never anything to do with functional languages, who thinks now about hiring some C and java programmers living in Belgrade

I don't understand how you deduced I "never had anything to do with functional languages"? Any how is it relevant to the subject at hand that I'm hiring Java and C++ (not C) programmers in Belgrade?

...

but who writes such silly, incompetent things as:

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And there is an air of staleness: where new versions of these other languages appear frequently, the Haskell community is offering you Hugs98.

I don't see why what I said is silly or incompetent? The Haskell Compiler and Interpreters page at haskell.org suggests Hugs98 for newcomers. While you and I know that the latest version of Hugs has been released two weeks ago, a curious visitor will wonder why there isn't Hugs 2001.

And the Haskell website is updated rarely in contrast with, say, the Python website.

...

Delovic points out that some languages became "immensely" popular, as e.g. Ruby, and that Haskell is marginal. Hm. this extremely orthodox Japanese essence of O-O programming may have some practical merits, especially those which come from shameless borrowing from Eiffel, Sather, Clu and Common Lisp, but calling Haskell "marginal" or "obscure" informs us not what is Haskell, but who is Jelovic.

Compared to the usage of C++, Java or Python, the usage of Haskell is _marginal_. Visit the computer section of your local bookstore if you need to be reminded of that.

BTW, you seem to be well-informed about who this Jelovic is. Why don't you share that knowledge with us? :)

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He accuses the Haskell community of not providing libraries...

Two errors here:

1. I didn't accuse anybody of anything. I was just curious about why people aren't using Haskell and started to think about it. There's a saying among Program Managers at Microsoft that "thinking is writing". I subscribe to that. I often write about things I think about in order to explore the issues. If I think other people might be interested in the end result, I post it.

2. I didn't say that the Haskell community has not provided the libraries. I said the Haskell community hasn't provided the libraries together with the compiler in one standard distribution. I think that's needed in order to lower the barrier to entry.

...

Perhaps there is *one* point worth mentioning: the necessity to publish papers about Haskell far from such journals as JFP or HOSC, but to try to reach DrDobbs etc.

Funny. You said at the beginning of your message that there is "NOTHING" serious there. :)

Dejan http://www.jelovic.com

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