John Hughes writes:
>> If now the language should be standardized, why not make it an
>> ISO/ANSI standard?
>>
>I don't think this is the time. Look at Pascal. After the revised definition
>was published many years passed before it became an ISO standard, during which
>the language did not change one jot. The final standardization just made one
>or two small revisions; the language itself was already largely in its final
>form. Let's jump through these hoops in five years time, when Haskell has been
>fixed for so long that language researchers aren't interested in it any
>more...
I do not think that the Pascal standardizing model is being used anymore;
instead one schedules a new revision, say every five years (this is used
for C++). There is already an application put in for ISO/ANSI standardizing
of Java, and I think Java is younger than Haskell. So I think the question
should at least be investigated; perhaps it is the developed Standard
Haskell that should be made ISO/ANSI.
>Students believe functional
>languages are good for toy programs because they learned them when they could
>only write toy programs.
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.
Hans Aberg
