Hans Aberg writes:
>
> I would rather think that the reason that functional languages are not
> used is the lack of an ISO/ANSI standard, plus the lack of standard ways of
> making cooperation with other, imperative languages.
>
This is true. The Haskell community has to decide wether Haskell
should be a quickly changing research language or a stable but slowly
evolving tool for developing real world systems.
Its a common problem in our business: users want stable and upward
compatible systems, designers want to integrate new concepts and
drop the whole thing if something better comes across ('when there
is a Haskell standard, its time to develop a new language').
Does Haskell really need the features that will be part of
a Research Haskell? Or is it better to freeze Haskell development
now and start developing systems u s i n g Haskell? Languages look
very ugly if too overloaded with new concepts (look at C++).
If Haskell still lacks important features it is no use to
make a Standard Haskell now.
Wolfgang Beck
