It's Haskell
In my programming resolutions post last week, I mentioned a short list of languages I was considering learning (or attempting to learn, anyway) in 2007.
I’ve decided on Haskell. Some of my reasons:
- It’s different. My “home language” is Python, which is great. But for a growth exercise, different is good. Blog posts bemoaning the weirdness and difficulty of Haskell only goad me on. Ruby is different from Python, but not as different as Haskell. Its declarative aspects remind me of Prolog, which I found strangely satisfying when I played with it in college.
- It’s a functional language. The functional style has always appealed to me, something I was reminded of when playing with Scheme last year.
- It feels like it’s growing. I wouldn’t say Lisp and Scheme are dying (if anything, they seem to be in a renaissance), but Haskell is popping up everywhere I look. Maybe I look in weird places. (I note that while the Pragmatics’ “Language of the Year” page doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2002, their 2002 pick was… Haskell.)
- The community seems good. One of the things I did when “researching” (I use that term loosely) languages was stick my head into their respective IRC channels. I found #haskell to be very friendly and active; that’s very appealing when you’re a solo developer trying to sort out confusing new concepts. The Haskell Sequence is a great resource, busy and wide-ranging but not overwhelming.
On the down side, let’s see… well, the logo is pretty ugly.
