Introducing NeoHaskell: A beacon of joy in a greyed tech world

[atravers]

@sullyj3

There’s the GHC Steering committee. Haskell isn’t GHC de jure, but it is de facto.

Yes: having a “steering” group for Haskell would probably make more sense if there was more than one active Haskell implementation.

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@sullyj3

a good example is C++, which has all sorts of arcane features, but is routinely taught to beginner programmers.

…yes, but:

rubenmoor:

Usually C++ developers are well aware that their toolbox isn’t sexy. There are usually practical reasons, most often just a huge legacy codebase that is still worth maintaining somehow.

…and with the second Rust compiler possibly arriving as soon as next year, the arcane features of most other general-purpose programming languages may very well be up for review…including Haskell. That the last attempt at a new Haskell Report failed just means another approach is needed.

It looks like the reign of the BDFL is almost over, so it will once again probably be a group entrusted with the task of “steering” Haskell in the future. If so, and Haskell still only has one active implementation, having its implementors (past or present) in that group must surely raise concerns about potential conflicts of interest: “parents never have ugly babies” :-D

On a practical note: if this meant implementors were excluded, it would probably make for a very small “steering” group and help to counter the appearance of “redundant bureaucracy”.

But I’m no sociologist - I too am an implementor, and all of the above should be considered from that viewpoint…

[emilypi]

I think we can end the convo here - there’s not much more to discuss in this forum if we’re going to get into the meta-philosophy of community management and pathologizing the psychological state of the Haskell community. I prefer not to do this in general, because it presumes far too much about individuals.

Based off this post, snobbery would be defined as a certain level of defensiveness, arrogance, closed-offness, and complacency in the Haskell community, when there are storm clouds on the horizon.

There’s a confirmation bias here that’s off-topic and not necessarily a fun convo to have about the method with which the article was presented and the shallow nature of its observations that presented both nothing new, nor anything anyone hadn’t been talking about for a while. Nick suffers from a siloing problem: developing his ideas alone without much input from anyone else to the effect that his ideas were redundant with a lot of other people’s ideas, stirring things up that had been already addressed, with a marketing grift that could have been presented much more competently. This is not endearing and it doesn’t help anyone, especially if the content has no effort or even experience behind it to drive change. I believe people are picking up on that part more than anything having to do with the ideas at play. At the very least Alexander Granin sat down and wrote blog posts and a book that detailed his thought processes. We are free to take it or leave it as a community. The issues were not with him in particular. He received adequate support and criticism in both directions for his ideas, but he chose not to give any quarter whatsoever insofar as his perceptions being incorrect. Rather, it was when his post content shifted from criticism to a “I am right and I’m being persecuted” John de Goes/Uncle Bob style combination crybully/bravado marketing style on twitter and reddit that he started receiving more pushback. The story to me is not that either of these two are ideologically wrong per se (i do disagree with most of what he says, but that’s not a problem in and of itself), but rather their communication style and transparent self-promotion are the things that irk people.

Perhaps there was a misunderstanding between you and Nick as well? I saw part of what happened and was shocked that the ex-CTO of Haskell Foundation came into the NeoHaskell Discord and was taking a look around.

I deleted my messages after the initial message from Nick, as a means of clean-rooming any involvement with the project. It’s easier for me not to have people talking to me about contributing or following up from those posts in that way.

As far as Nick being conciliatory, I have no ill will towards him directly. However, this is very personal, and I’m sorry for bringing it up in this venue, but it’s one of the great annoyances of my career that I constantly feel like I have to manage the delicate feelings of men with an ego problem who have Big Dreams, but can’t handle criticism and lack the communication skills to effect any change. Chalk it up to professional trauma.

[Liamzy]

Thanks for not tearing into me further as my particular post could have been more aggressively assaulted.

I’ll also self-criticize for using the term snob; I am less likely to take the term as offensive than most others, and it’s not a good way to frame differing values in different parts of the Haskell community.

Moreover, there was an incipient discussion about gatekeeping, its positives and negatives, differences in attitudes between Haskellers and many mainstream programmers, that my clumsiness seems to have shut down.

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As far as Nick goes, I’m not asking for anything; I don’t think anyone who is trying to work with Nick might ask for anything either.

End of the day, it’s essentially a vaporware project, and until it is more fleshed out, there is really nothing to see here other than 90th percentile marketing copy. I’d argue that a good portion of the attention this product has received have been from people calling the project out for empty promises.

Potentially, it could lead to volunteers overhauling the CPython library on Hackage, a monomer-equivalent for mobile (and afaik this is actually a goal of the present monomer developer, so this might not be necessary), and/or a newbie-friendly Haskell dialect that remains on GHC, but the only code this product has produced so far is HTML5, CSS, and Javascript.

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Anyways, thank you for taking the time to respond to a post that didn’t deserve one.

[emilypi]

Thanks for realizing those arguments were… less than ideal

It takes a ton of character and that’s really nice to see. Like I said, no ill will towards anyone. I think if Nick came forward with a more humble and fleshed out proposal after a stretch of time, he’ll find success. Good luck

[AntC2]

@emilypi

I constantly feel like I have to manage the delicate feelings of men with an ego problem …

@emilypi

transparent shilling

‘shill’ at wiktionary – is that the sense you intended?

@Liamzy

it’s essentially a vaporware project … marketing copy

(remember the original author had felt disrespected by that word/attitude, as @f-a quoted:)

@Nick

there’s this group of people calling my hobby project vaporwave, even though I’m not selling anything or asking anyone to do anything

I am perplexed by the moderation policy on this thread. I see (after one of my posts was hidden, and another criticised) a great deal of ad-hominem language.

@emilypi

… pathologizing the psychological state … I prefer not to do this in general, …

Then don’t. (And it’s not only men that exhibit “an ego problem”.)

[chandy]

yeah this is very obviously vaporware

[hasufell]

Pointing out misbehavior itself is one thing, but I find this character discussion rather exhausting and it seems to me that’s something better to have in private or not at all.

[dangdennis]

Good luck! Anyone trying anything like this and riling up the world with a better vision is awesome in my book.