>> So what application logic problems aren't solved by Haskell then?
>
> Operating on mutable lists (or whatever it was you tried back then, and
> ran into a set of libraries that all did it in a different way
> unsuitable for your needs so you resorted to a rant), for instance?

Haskell's library support for mutable arrays is a mess. But we're still 
talking about bad library design, not bad language design.

>> The purpose of a library is to make stuff easy, after all...
>
> Still, not every library succeeds in that job to a degree that it can be
> called "simple and elegant". And sometimes that's not due to design
> flaws in the library, but due to the underlying language standing in the
> way.

Sure. And my argument is that if a language is designed well, you can 
use it to write powerful libraries which are simple and easy to use. 
(And if a language is designed poorly, you often can't do that.) Hence 
why good language design is so important.

>> If C is so great for writing operating systems, where are there so many
>> different, incompatible operating systems? :-P
>
> Because there's no such thing as a simple, elegant cover-it-all, maybe?

Most of this stuff is due to social, organisational, economic and other 
reasons, not language design.



Your core argument appears to be that a useful programming language 
necessarily has to be badly designed. I reject that. The fact that all 
of the widely used languages are badly designed doesn't mean that bad 
design is a necessary attribute.

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