Do you have concrete data on this claim? It is certain that FP languages are going down on the trend, with only trace of features adopted to the OOP languages.
The trend of simpler, easier-to-learn languages is also quite visible. Perhaps not in the US central scene, but it has already dominated the fringes.
If anything… the struggle of the various FP languages seems to be an effort to revert the dwindling posture in software scene.
I do not have any data.
People have being trying to do no-code/low-code things forever. I think it eventually will catch on, but I don’t see what makes this time better. Frankly, I have a hard time understanding the industry’s latest trends. Cloud is hugely overpriced, microservices are terrible, etc. etc. (I could go on about why I think everything is so screwy right now, but that would be veering off-topic.)
Rust Typescript and Swift, pattern matching in python, generics in Go, official static type checkers for Python and Ruby… our ideas are clearly catching on in the mainstream in some form. People have said for years “Haskell’s ideas will win, but not Haskell itself”. But I fail to see why compromise is inevitable, vs a sample of good things in more popular languages will just cultivate people’s tastes, and make them yearn for more.
I see, tho one thing I noticed is that it is becoming more pervasive. There are already several no-code frameworks in my small country - the write-once manage-never solutions, most of which are developed in recent 5 years.
With advent of AI, more of no-code sols would become possible. In the meantime, languages like python could dominate the scene.
Well, me too. However, I do think we need to keep up with it. In the end, capitalism says that what is more efficient in terms of cost is better. Do not forget that people are often irrational, and that should be reflected in the efficiency analysis.
According to many users of the languages, pattern matching and static type checkers in python and other languages are FOMO and desperate attempt to ward off competition. I do not see how it shows growing popularity of FP.
… Perhaps I did too much of a rant… I guess I wanted to get this frustration off my chest.
I dislike when the world does not align with my directions, but that is likely part of my stubborn nature.
That’s not exactly how I would describe what I had in mind. More like: if someone was interested in Haskell and then came to the conclusion that it was not worth their time, the Haskell community loses out.
According to many users of the languages, pattern matching and static type checkers in python and other languages are FOMO and desperate attempt to ward off competition. I do not see how it shows growing popularity of FP.
Ah, but if they are feeling FOMO, then surely we’re doing things right!
In the end, capitalism says that what is more efficient in terms of cost is better.
Hehehe if only. I would argue we are in an speculative asset bubble such that many price signals are being drowned out. This makes me skeptical that what I see around me are enduring trends, not passing fads.
Lot of low-code stuff feels like lipstick on a pig to me, when the real productivity killer is not coding being hard, but the mountain of tech debt we work upon. Or at least, we could make coding easier better if all the bullshit was cleared away first.
I can’t but hope the economic conditions will change dramatically. I do the work I do assuming that hope will be borne out, and the tortoise will pull ahead of the hare.
Hm, I thought FOMO meant “Fear of missing out, when it is simply an unworthy passing trend” - often used along with “FAD”. Anyway, let’s hope we are right: features like pattern matching are indeed useful and important.
Interesting, does the market action affect the entire economy in such a huge degree? If it is so… I hate the market now. (Stock market, right?)
FOMO just means “fear of missing out”. It is indeed usually used disparagingly in the sense that the person feeling the fear needs more backbone to just ignore the ad, but presumably the person feeling the FOMO rather than using the pejorative “FOMO” might not necessary think in those terms 
I imagine the pythonistas who think pattern matching is stupid shit are saying python has developed a case of “FP envy”, and pattern matching is a passing fad. But presumably the people pushing the proposal (unless they are super cynical) think the pattern matching is actually good!
That is a complicated question that best be taken elsewhere. But I invite you to join me down the Post-Keynesian rabbit hole :).
Yea, I hope great for the people. At least, it seems that one of the python influencer, Guido van Rossum (I heard he is the creator of python, tho I don’t know if that is true), had led to the great change.
There’s a couple of misconceptions in the last few posts:
So if you’re here making suggestions with the aim of widening Haskell’s appeal, GHC HQ will not be persuaded. From early on the thread:
That “cost” is not monetary – or not that GHC HQ can see. It’s “social” in that the community might get grumpy. OTOH some might be delighted a wart has been removed and replaced by the ‘proper’ way to achieve the functionality. Should the current ScopedTypeVariables or AmbiguousTypes be preserved in perpetuity for fear of breaking somebody’s crufty code? They’re so yeuchy I’ve always avoided them. I’d want them gone – that is, if I cared any more. The FTP library changes I objected to not because they broke stuff, but because they brought in a design worse than what they were trying to ‘fix’ – as the instigator would have been told if they’d incurred the ‘social cost’ of actually consulting.
I agree with the problems esp with the extensions, but I do not get why FTP was problematic, as one who came after the FTP change.
What problem did FTP intend to fix, and why was it a worse fix for the case? To me, they always seemed more of niceties.
It might have been like this in the past, but now a large part of the work on GHC is done by employees of Well-Typed, Tweag, Galois, and IOHK. And in fact, it is exactly these industrial users (mainly Tweag) who are pushing complex features like linear and dependent types. So, perhaps if one wanted to keep the language simple they should have pushed for avoiding success even more.
Haskell usage in industry is easily 10x bigger than it was 10 years ago. Anyone who was trying to get a job in Haskell at that time could not dispute that. I got my first Haskell job 9 years ago, and I found a couple of job ads in a year suitable for a developer on the junior/senior boundary; now there are a few of those a month.
hmm? Is it Tweag corporate pushing for those features? Or is it that the people pushing for those features happen to work for Tweag?
It’s less than clear to me why an industrial user would put up with an awful records ‘system’ and prioritise Dependent Types. Lack of (polymorphic, extensible) records is why I don’t promote Haskell to my industrial/commercial clients.
Again, I’m not claiming there’s a Haskell that’s “simple”. I want ‘small’. It’s not clear to me that conflating namespaces is essential for Dependent Types; even if it is, it’s clear that conflating namespaces has made the syntax a whole lot bigger. (Maybe it’s the trying to remain backwards-compatible that’s bloated it. Perhaps Tweag should start afresh, throw out the baggage and sponsor a Haskell 2030 or some such.)
Hmm, as I asked: where are all these people? Do they not care/not want to volunteer an opinion on where Haskell is going? Perhaps their employers are sticking at very old releases, because keeping up with the churn is a cost with little benefit?
As a point of comparison, look at the number of people with an opinion about the FTP/AMP library changes (and note the couple of 'stepping back’s towards the end of that month). How many of those are still active in Haskell?
See @rae: Update on Dependent Haskell - YouTube (around 8:22). @rae mentions that companies like Serokell and Obsidian systems are paying their consultants work on dependent Haskell.
Imho this claim requires much more concrete data. The ‘statistic’ might only apply to your local neighborhood.
Let’s not stir sleeping dogs. ‘FTP changes’ is a shorthand term for a bunch of stuff “technically a separate proposal” (and including reorging AMP), none of which were clearly signalled in advance; and that wiki substantially underestimates what was actually coming. (For example the wiki doesn’t mention the changes introduced a bunch of instances, that might have been contrary to instances other libraries had already written.)
Here might be a place to understand the sorry mess. (And SPJ’s attempt to ‘move forward’ a few messages later.) There’s a mix of people surprised at the suddenness/lack of notice; surprised at the decisions (some eventually persuaded they were ‘logical’); surprised at the scope/impact of what appeared in one release; as well as plain disagreeing with the decisions.
How many are no longer active? Searching for a few names + Haskell yields recent results (at least >2020) for every name I’ve tried. Update: I haven’t found anything about Brian O’Sullivan.
I was searching for jobs globally then and I’m talking about global availability of jobs now.
Oh, so you were talking about the process, and naturally, the details of the breakage? I did not know it was this serious. I guess I liked streamlined F-A-M aftermath, but I certainly might not appreciate the change if I were involved with haskell beforehand.
I wonder how it served the researchers. Was it for their best interest? Surely it is, right? Otherwise why would such a change happen.