On Thu, 2009-02-26 at 06:30 -0700, John A. De Goes wrote: > On Feb 25, 2009, at 7:49 PM, Achim Schneider wrote: > > "John A. De Goes" <j...@n-brain.net> wrote: > > > >> The problem is that PL research is probably not going to stop > >> evolving in our lifetimes. Yes, that research needs a venue, but why > >> should it be Haskell? Haskell is a good language and it's time to > >> start benefiting from the research that's already gone into it. That > >> means some tradeoffs. > >> > > Why shouldn't it be Haskell? > > More, why *can't* it be Haskell. Haskell is already constrained by > backwards compatibility, which limits future directions. Partial > functions and dependent typing do not seem to play well together, for > instance. > > Moreover, look at the packages being uploaded to Hackage: they're > almost all trying to do useful stuff. The direction of Haskell has > already changed, and I don't see it reverting to its old course. > > > Not really, look at e.g. type families, which give you much of the > > power dependently typed languages give you while saying "nah, not yet" > > to the question of how to deal with non-terminating typechecking. > > *Some*, not *much*, and there are dependently typed languages that > have guaranteed terminating type checking. > > > About the H' progress... It's hard to tell how many drops are needed > > to > > make a bucket overflow, especially if you've got no idea what the > > bucket looks like. What certainly isn't happening is people taking a > > house, trying to overflow a badly leaking bucket. > > As far as I know, H' was supposed to be completed many years ago. > Likely, it won't be completed for many more years. H2 is probably more > than a decade away, if it happens at all.
Here's to hoping it doesn't. Practical languages, when they change, *never* improve. And that's going from study (although not experience!) of 40 years of history. jcc _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe