Marko Schuetz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> If they find (economic) interest in the language I am sure they will
> try to take over control of the language in their typical
> way, as they have done or tried to do with numerous technologies (Java
> being the most recent), by:
>
> - 'technical enhancement': that is introducing some features into
> Haskell and omitting/changing some others, while continuing to call
> it Haskell
>
> - 'bundling': connecting this MS-Haskell to some widespread software
> eg IE, making that software refuse to properly execute the majority
> of non-MS-Haskell programs.
Let's face it, this would be better than the situation we have now,
with only a handful of people worldwide who get paid to actively
develop Haskell compilers. As a result, I can count the number of
good Haskell compilers on the fingers of half a hand. And even those
don't have a decent GUI or development environment. Ok, us hackers
are happy to use emacs, but that's not going to cut it in the real
world.
IMO, Haskell suffers too much from being a research vehicle. I
believe the emphasis should be less on "let's protect our beautiful
language" and more on developing great tools and actually making the
thing *usable* for real-world tasks. Languages don't get anywhere on
elegance alone. Sad but true.
Cheers,
Simon
BTW, I'm moving to Microsoft too.
--
Simon Marlow [EMAIL PROTECTED]
University of Glasgow http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~simonm/
finger for PGP public key
