From: Jamis Buck <jgb3@...>
Date: 2004-01-22T00:18:43+09:00
Subject: Re: Proposal for programming language of the year

jason r tibbetts wrote:

>
>Your mentioning Haskell reminded me that I tried to learn it a couple of years
>ago, signed up on the mailing list, etc., but ultimately lost interest because
>the discussions focused on a /much/ higher level than they do here on the Ruby
>list--arguments over language design, etc., with few mentions of using Haskell
>to do anything productive. It's probably a vast improvement over Lisp, as far as
>functional languages are concerned, but harder to grasp. I'm just as much a fan
>of languages-for-languages'-sake as the next CS person, but I was /so/ pleased
>to find Ruby som time later and see instantly how useful it is. But if anyone
>else on the list is considering Haskell as their language of the year, I'll join
>'em in trying to figure it out.
>
>  
>

Wow, that was my experience in a nutshell, too.  I've tried several 
times to learn Haskell (and OCaml, BTW), but always fail to see how it 
could actually be useful/"fun".  Also, the syntax seems obfuscated to 
me, but that's probably just because I've had little experience with 
functional languages (a little Scheme in college, is all).

I'd be happy to try again, on either of those, especially if there were 
someone else with a Ruby background willing to give it a try, or to act 
as guide.  A "Haskell for Rubyists" (or "OCaml for Rubyists") kind of 
manual would sure be slick, too, if anyone has a bit of spare time. ;)

-- 
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu

ruby -h | ruby -e 'a=[];readlines.join.scan(/-(.)\[e|Kk(\S*)|le.l(..)e|#!(\S*)/) {|r| a << r.compact.first };puts "\n>#{a.join(%q/ /)}<\n\n"'