Am 14.08.2012 15:12, schrieb Invisible:
>>> So what do you think Haskell solves inelegantly?
>>>
>>> It's no secret that the libraries lack vast swathes of important
>>> functionality, or that some of the build tools leave a lot to be
>>> desired. But the core language itself? It isn't perfect, but it's a
>>> damn-site more elegant than any other programming language I've ever
>>> laid eyes on.
>>
>> That may well be true, and I actually believe it, but as soon as you
>> want to do some serious programming you'll /need/ more than that elegant
>> core; you'll need those libraries of which /you/ yourself said that
>> various of them suck for this and that reason and none of them gives you
>> exactly what you need.
>>
>> An elegant core language may be nice to have, but if as a consequence it
>> takes you ages to get the job done, unless you make use of plenty
>> non-elegant language extensions or libraries, it doesn't /really/
>> qualify as "a simpler, more elegant design that solves everything".
>
> Right. So you're saying the fact that nobody has sat down and written a
> comprehensive set of libraries makes the language "non-elegant" and
> "poorly designed"?

I did not say THAT.

What I did say is that if nobody has sat down and written a 
comprehensive set of libraries, this prevents the lange from being a 
language that "solves everything" - and, consequentially, from 
qualifying as "a simpler, more elegant design that solves everything".

What I also did imply is that if anybody would indeed sit down and write 
a comprehensive cover-all set of libraries, there would likely be quite 
a number of them that would be non-elegant to use; and if those 
libraries would form a part the language's way of "solving everything", 
then THEY would disqualify the combo (core language + libraries) from 
qualifying as that "simpler, more elegant design that solves everything".


> Haskell does not have the rich set of libraries that C# has because it
> wasn't developed by a multi-billion dollar global mega corporation. It
> was developed by three beardy guys in a shed on day. If it ever becomes
> popular, we'll see more libraries being developed for it. If (as seems
> more likely) it never becomes really popular, then we won't. But either
> way, this has nothing to do with whether the language is well-designed
> or not.

Right. But it has something to do with whether the language "solves 
everything" [for practical purposes].

Can you easily model a state machine in Haskell? If not, then it doesn't 
solve everything.

Can you easily write a GUI in Haskell? If not, then it doesn't solve 
everything.

Can you easily write an OS kernel in Haskell? If not, then it doesn't 
solve everything.

Just three things that immediately spring to my mind; I'm sure there's 
gazillions of others out there.

As soon as you have libraries (or other language extensions) for all 
conceivable purposes, we'll talk again - about elegancy then.

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