On Nov 27, 2007 1:33 PM, apfelmus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> David Menendez wrote: > > Thomas Davie wrote: > > > >> But the point is that this section of the site is the bit that's meant > >> to be an advertisement -- we're trying to encourage people to read > >> more, > > > > > > Are we? I thought Haskell.org was intended to describe what Haskell > *is*. > > There are plenty of articles and blog posts and wiki pages out there > that > > advocate Haskell. I don't see why the main web page needs to be polluted > > with marketing. > > Agreed! I hate marketing! The facts can speak for themselves, if you > need somebody to "explain" them, then something's wrong. > > More specifically, "fact" means something that you can easily check > yourself. "Robust"/"maintainable"/"testable" code are things you _can't_ > easily check yourself without already learning the language. > > But "shorter code" is a fact you can easily check, for instance with > quicksort as example. In fact, "short code" is the reason why I picked > up Haskell. Back then, I was given the task to calculate some sequence > of numbers which I did in one page of C code. So far so good, but when I > asked the task assigner about his solution, he responded: "Ah, this > problem, that's 1 line in Haskell. Well, 2 lines if the terminal is too > small." Such power! Hearing just this was more than enough reason for me > to learn Haskell and to never look back. > > > Regards, > apfelmus > > This is not a reasonable definition of "fact". There are many facts which are not practical for a person to verify quickly, and many of them are quite important. It is perfectly reasonable to seek a consensus of experts on a subject, and it is perfectly reasonable to present information such as claims of robustness / maintainability / testability on the assumption that the person reading it will then take steps to verify the claims, generally by asking trusted experts.
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