Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

It seems strange to consider Haskell as dead when its motto was "Avoid success at all costs". Haskell wasn't popular in enterprise settings because it didn't want to sacrifice being a good language for being a popular one. Haskell was/is very successful if you base it on it's own terms. Now, that goal can be debated, it could be argued that an unpopular language is never that good because it is unpopular, but that's a different argument.



> it didn't want to sacrifice being a good language for being a popular one

I think this is the key. The motto that you mentioned is often clarified/refined as something like "avoid 'success at all costs'".


Exactly. Haskell has explicitly been run and planned around not being successful because real production usage and success will require the maintainers to limit breaking changes, for example, which defeats its purpose as a language for experimentation and research.


This. It's the next ALGOL. Let the next dozen popular languages cherry pick the good parts from it and don't worry about people using it directly.


It’s bittersweet to vaguely know a good language I’ve never been able to use professionally.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: