Haskell Practicality Debate

The cluster centers on debates about Haskell's strengths like its type system, laziness, and abstractions versus its practicality, hype, and real-world usability, with users sharing experiences, criticisms, and comparisons to languages like Python and Go.

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Keywords

CS GHC HN OOP PureScript FP github.io Logger.log haskell.html haskell languages language monad types python programmers solutions pragmatic toy

Sample Comments

verroq Jun 25, 2012 View on HN

Learn Haskell to see how things could be done. Don't use Haskell for things that should be done.

codygman Dec 27, 2014 View on HN

Can you list a few reasons you think Haskell isn't pragmatic?

jolux Apr 4, 2021 View on HN

Your experience of using Haskell is that it causes more bugs than less abstract languages?

gkfasdfasdf Dec 9, 2025 View on HN

Can you elaborate? What is it about Haskell that makes it better?

zzzcpan Sep 30, 2017 View on HN

Could you give a few examples of good parts about Haskell and why do you believe they are good for anybody?

farresito Jul 31, 2017 View on HN

What makes you say Haskell is an abomination?

boothead Jan 13, 2016 View on HN

What do you find impractical about Haskell out of interest?

exe34 Oct 1, 2024 View on HN

they clearly haven't tried Haskell!

jacquesm Jan 19, 2015 View on HN

It sort of makes me wonder how much of the hype around Haskell is overblown, this seems like pretty basic stuff. Haskell has all kinds of interesting properties but the way it is presented is usually as though it is an end-run around just about every problem in other programming languages. A dose of up-front honesty about potential issues would be handy. Are there any other things that are problematic in Haskell that other programmers from lesser languages usually take for granted?

atroche Oct 3, 2019 View on HN

Came here to say exactly this.And also to point to this excellent article: https://pchiusano.github.io/2017-01-20/why-not-haskell.html