On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 11:46:56PM +0100, Wolfgang Jeltsch wrote:
Am Mittwoch, 1. Februar 2006 11:49 schrieb Bulat Ziganshin:
[...]
i had one idea, what is somewhat corresponding to his discussion:
make a strict Haskell dialect. implement it by translating all expressions of form "f x" into "f $! x" and then going to the standard (lazy) haskell translator. the same for data fields - add to all field definitions "!" in translation process. then add to this strict Haskell language ability to _explicitly_ specify lazy fields and lazy evaluation, for example using this "~" sign
what it will give? ability to use Haskell as powerful strict language, what is especially interesting for "real-world" programmers. i have found myself permanently fighting against the lazyness once i starting to optimize my programs. for the newcomers, it just will reduce learning path - they don't need to know anything about lazyness
Since laziness often allows you to solve problems so elegantly, I'm really scared of the idea of a "Strict Haskell"! :-( Is laziness really so "unreal" that real-world programmers have to see it as an enemy which they have to fight against?
In fact, I was kind of shocked as I read in Simon Peyton Jones' presentation "Wearing the hair shirt" [1] that in his opinion "Lazyness doesn't really matter".
I am with you. If Haskell switches to strictness, I am going to stay with the old compilers, I guess... I just love laziness (or non-strictness). Maybe speculative evaluation is the way to go? Best regards Tomasz -- I am searching for programmers who are good at least in (Haskell || ML) && (Linux || FreeBSD || math) for work in Warsaw, Poland