It is not obvious that Haskell provides an order of magnitude improvement
in any of these areas. Where I think Haskell (or Haskell compiler
writers), could really be useful is in providing better XML transformation
languages and implementations. XML Schemas are emerging as the defacto
type system for the Internet. XSLT is the w3 designed functional
programming language for processing XML. It seems like the people in this
community know more about the "right" way to design and implement an
XML transformation language than anyone else. For example, XSLT does not
easily support fold-type operations for accumulating report summaries,
though this is exactly the type of task that an XML transformation
language should be designed to accomplish. In addition XSLT
implementations are INCREDIBLY SLOW.
A funcitional programming language that allows speedy processing of XML
datastructures would be a big win here.
I know that this may not be Haskell as it is currently conceived, but I
assume that the people here know more about the right answers than anyone
else.
-Alex-
___________________________________________________________________
S. Alexander Jacobson Shop.Com
1-212-697-0184 voice The Easiest Way To Shop
On Thu, 25 Nov 1999, Eduardo Costa wrote:
> >| I mean, a group who could produce a
> >| competitive compiler, useful not only to people who are
> >| interested in testing
> >| the language, but also in using it to produce commercial and
> >| industrial tools.
> >
> >I think that would be absolutely splendid and I would do whatever
> >I could to support such a person/group/company.
> >
> >Simon
>
> Then, don t you think that, if we contact software companies, we
> could find some one who would buy the idea? Of course, I would
> not be able to sell the idea, but there are people in the Haskell
> community with a better chance to get commercial and industrial
> support for Haskell. As far as I can see, Haskell is a good product
> (I mean, from the point of view of an investitor).
> It is used in many universities, even in my country (for instance,
> it is used as introductory language in the Computer Science
> Department of my own university). With a little make up, things
> like Zermello-Frankel notation would give a good replacement
> for SQL. A good computer algebra library (like the one that
> prof. R. Malaquias is creating) would make Haskell a good
> scripting language to replace things like Mathlab, Maple, etc.
> I really think that it is possible to lure a software company
> into investing in Haskell.
>
> You could say that it would be better to have groups
> of voluntary programmers (like the people who created Linux
> and GNU), instead of companies like Microsoft. Well, I guess
> that Haskell has atractive features to these groups too. For instance,
> Haskell could be used to produce a free version of Maple,
> Matlab, or even Labview.
>
> I want to suggest to the Haskell community
> the creation of something like a public relation interest group,
> who would search support from the software industry, and
> from strong teams of voluntary workers(GNU, Linux, etc.)
>
> EdCosta
>
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