An opportunity that I couldn't pass up

[david-christiansen]

Dear Haskell Community,

Since May, 2022, I’ve had the honor and pleasure of serving as the Executive Director of the Haskell Foundation. As many of you know, I’ve had a deep and abiding interest in dependently-typed programming, formal verification, compile-time metaprogramming, and programmer tooling. A rare opportunity came by to work on all of these at once, and I will be returning to a full-time developer role at the beginning of October.

Based on the hard work of our volunteers, the board, and our collaborators, the HF has become a key part of the community’s infrastructure. This will not stop - we’ve arranged for project work to continue after my last day, and the next ED will take over an organization in action.

I won’t be going anywhere - I love Haskell, and it will continue to be the best tool for many of the jobs I like to do. The Board of Directors will soon begin the process of recruiting my replacement, who will certainly have their own take on how to most effectively help the community. Please direct questions about that process to the Chair of the Board, @rae. If you’re considering applying and would like to discuss the job with me, please get in touch. I will do everything I can to help the new ED succeed - I hope you will too, just as you’ve helped me so much.

Thank you, dear community, for your trust and kindness. Thank you HF sponsors, for making it possible for me and my successor to do this work. This isn’t goodbye - I’ll see you around.

David

[kosmikus]

I would like to express massive thanks to David, both as a board member of the Haskell Foundation and as one of the partners at Well-Typed (which is a sponsor of the HF). It has been an absolute pleasure to work with you, David, and I’m very sad to see you leave, even though I can understand that this new opportunity very much appeals to you. I wish you all the best for the new job!

[hasufell]

David has been a treasure to me, both personally and in my capacity as an open source contributor.

I’m sad to see someone leave the HF, who understands my passion for user experience as deeply as he does.

But I’m also happy to see David taking on an exciting new venture.

All the best. Stay with us.

[DavidB]

I can also only attest that David really is as nice in person as he is here on the forums, and I always look forward to meeting and talking to him in person at some event. One of the visions he formulated for the Haskell world is that we should strive to become the language with the greatest, most usable and most innovative tooling. I think there is no better way for us to make David happy than to continue working in this direction

All the best for your new job, I am really looking forward what cool proof assistant tooling you will develop next.

[ApothecaLabs]

My most sincere congratulations on finding something that aligns so well with your interests! I am relatively new here, but in that time David has made quite the impression in being supportive and I know that he will do well in his new adventure

[jzwood]

Best of luck, David! Thank you for your good work!

[bradrn]

I started using Haskell probably about 8 years ago, and in that time the language and tooling have become immeasurably better. Most of that has been in the past few years, and I directly attribute it to the efforts of the Haskell Foundation. Congratulations @david-christiansen on your new role, and thank you so much for all of your efforts on behalf of the Haskell community!

[yellowbean]

Thank you and wish you a best journey !

[bgamari]

Thank you, David! You have been a joy to work with over the past year and it is a great loss for the HF and Haskell as a whole to see you move on. We are all richer for your kindness, keen technical sense, and vision.

Nevertheless, I would likely make the same decision in your position; your new opportunity is truly too good not to seize. You will leave a pair of very hard-to-fill shoes behind.

All the best and I look forward to seeing you around!

[david-christiansen]

Thank you all for your kindness. I have confidence that the board will find a new ED who will do a great job - they’ll probably do it differently that I do, but there’s more than one way to get useful things done, and we should each use our personal strengths.

Please remember that everything useful I’ve gotten done in this job has been in tight collaboration with the rest of the Haskell community, including open-source hackers, Haskell consultancies, companies using Haskell, and researchers. None of these people are going anywhere, and the HF and Haskell more broadly will keep making progress. No need to worry!

[rae]

It has been a unique pleasure working with David in his role as Executive Director of the HF. David and I have met weekly to strategize, remove roadblocks, and dream up new ideas. I’ve greatly enjoyed these sessions, and am sorry to know they will be ending. Even so, I can’t help but be excited for (and just a tiny bit jealous of) David’s next steps!

Thank you thank you, David, for all you’ve done for all of us!

[etorreborre]

You’ve been a great Executive Director David. Good luck on your next role!

[Ei30metry]

When GHC workshop was announced, I really wanted to enroll but I felt like the situation wouldn’t allow me to do so. I emailed, David and from that moment, he helped me throughout the whole process.

GHC workshop and Zurihac, really were life changing events for me. If it wasn’t for David’s kindness and support, I wouldn’t have experience them!

Thank you for all your efforts, and wish you the best with your next job!

[silky]

Can’t believe I’m the first one to ask; but, what’s the new job?!

[david-christiansen]

On the one hand, I don’t want to be talking about non-Haskell things here unless I think doing so will help Haskell, but on the other, it’s only polite to satisfy your curiosity. So I’ll tell you where I’m going, but if you’ve got any discussion related to the new job, please email my personal email or contact me on their forums next month.

I’ll be working full-time on Lean 4 at the Lean FRO.