Frank Atanassow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote,
> Sorry, I got carried away with my silly "hacker" post.
>
> Manuel M. T. Chakravarty writes:
> > Frank Atanassow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote, > Proposition > Hackers can like
> > FP. [..] > Proof 1: > By contradiction.
> > >
> > > Nothing could be more obscure or esoteric to a hacker than FP. (They
> > > even seem to admit it themselves.)
> >
> > I don't see the validity of this point. Especially, given that much of
> > todays hackerdom originated in the Lisp communities. For example, when I
> > talked with ESR about programming languages, he said that one of the things
> > he misses in Python is fully-fledged lambda abstractions.
>
> I was going to mention Stallman and Emacs; but by my
> definition Stallman was a guru, not a hacker...
I guess, the problem here is that by a hacker's definition
of a hacker, what you call a guru is a hacker - and many of
those that you call hackers are wannabees :-)
> ESR and RMS may like LISP, but clearly they aren't "converts" in the same
> sense as most of the list members here; Emacs and Guile aside, most of the
> code they produce seems to be in conventional languages.
I don't really agree with that. RMS advocates C a lot for
systems projects, but that's largely because of the
portability issues and frankly, a language like Haskell in
its current form is about as unportable as it gets (ok, VB
is worse, but that's about it).
OSS programs often use Lisp-based extension languages:
Emacs, GIMP, Gnome has Guile support, the window manager
sawfish (formerly know as sawmill), and others. Python also
gets more and more popular and it includes FP concepts. In
fact, AFIK RMS advocates writing core programs in C and
adding a Lisp-based extension language to program the rest
(like with Emacs).
> > > Of course, many hacker sapiens are something less than open-minded. You
> > > only need to look at /. to convince yourself of that.
> >
> > Never confuse wannabees
> > <http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/wannabee.html> with the real
> > thing.
>
> OK, different names, same denotation. My "guru" is your "hacker"; my "hacker"
> is your "wannabee". Your hackers are still in the minority, and the
> proposition is that something needs to be done about convincing the masses. I
> was suggesting that if you hook the gurus, then the rest will follow.
Ok :-)
> > > And if you _can't_ convince a guru and write better programs faster, then
> > > maybe FP isn't so good after all... unless you plan on writing all the
> > > world's programs yourself.
> > [..]
> > I think, the critical thing here is not outperforming existing
> > applications, but saving time developing new applications. If there is one
> > thing a hacker hates, then it is wasting time on doing a job that could be
> > done more efficiently[1] or repeatedly doing a job that could be automated.
> > [..]
> > [1] The exception is of course where doing the job is the
> > end, not a means.
>
> Not if the cost in efficiency is too high. The situation isn't that black and
> white. I really do believe that the imperative camp's valuation of the
> correctness vs. efficiency tradeoff is different.
>
> <rant>
> Also, I've observed many FP/LP people argue that slow or memory-hungry
> applications aren't such a big deal because "in 5 years, Moore's law will make
> them efficient." The problem with this argument is that consumers and
> programmers don't reason this way. They don't say to themselves, "Now I have a
> shiny new computer, three times faster and with twice the memory of my old
> one. NOW I can run functional programs!" :) They say, "Now I have a shiny new
> computer, three times faster and with twice the memory of my old one. NOW I
> can run twice as many applications three times as fast!" As machines get
> better, program functionality also increases. "Perceived performance" seems to
> remain fairly constant, if you see what I mean.
> </rant>
In the days of Java and Word, I think, the claim that users
expect fast programs doesn't cut it anymore. They have long
ago given up.
Nevertheless - if I understand you correctly - I agree with
the core of your statement anyway: It is time to make
Haskell a practically useful language, rather than just a
beautiful language. AFAIK now there is a substantial number
of people on this list who are working towards this goal.
Cheers,
Manuel
