At 03:55 AM 9/9/99 , Mark P Jones wrote:
>I hope that my comments here will help you to understand Erik's
>message more fully, and to begin to appreciate how useful types
>can be in reading, understanding, and writing Haskell code.
I understand what Erik said and how useful types can be in such activities.
But cryptic definitions and :t invocations alone don't replace good,
accurate documentation.
Yes :t is useful. Very useful. Probably the most powerful tool for my
learning activities now that I've read enough of the Thompson book to
actually be able to read (many) type declarations. It still doesn't
replace good, accurate, documentation of the language and its library
however. It can at best supplement it.
Currently Haskell is almost, but not quite, actively newbie-hostile. The
Thompson and Bird books do much to alleviate this, but consider: what
motivation would a curious, but not committed, newbies have to drop the
cash on these books just to find out if Haskell was right for their
purposes? I knew that Haskell was right for my purposes before I bought
the books (because my purpose was to learn, not necessarily to use in the
long term), so this wasn't an issue for me. Other newbies may not have
that motivation (and substantial disposable income).
The newbie support for Haskell, outside of some useful books, is not very
good. And saying that :t solves such problems is naive and ultimately harmful.
(Am I now talking myself into the position of writing a "practical
newcomer's guide to Haskell" here?...)
--
Michael T. Richter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.igs.net/~mtr/
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