Category Archives: Software

Today’s Reading + Perl Community

General, Programming

Cliff’s memories of Easter are a great read.

A study showing that a significant number of people exhibit violence towards their computer when it malfunctions, and another significant number of people attempt to sweet-talk it.

Shapr posted a link to the extremeperl mailing list. I found this post on the value of learning languages to be insightful.

Along a similar line, there’s an intriguing post on The Sequence from a Perl hacker looking at the Haskell community. I think he’s right.

These Perl people are really impressing me lately. My respect for the Perl commnuity has really shot upwards lately. And I am similarly disappointed in many of the directions Python is taking these days. Nice time to be using Haskell :-)

Haskell: The Humbling Language

Programming

Usually when I learn a new programming language, I’ll hang out on its mailing lists and IRC channels, learning from the answers given to other people’s questions, and asking my own. After a month or two, I usually feel fairly good with my abilities; that I could answer most of the questions, and understand most of the questions.

Well, I’ve been using Haskell for about 6 months now. I really like Haskell, and it’s a great language to use, and it’s already my preferred language.

But here’s what’s unique about Haskell. The more I use it, and the more I participate with the Haskell community, the more I realize just how much there is that I could learn. And it seems that I’m not alone with that feeling.

I wonder why Haskell is unique this way.

Today’s Reading

Software

Why Does Windows Still Suck? from the San Francisco Gate. Mark Morford asks the question: why do people put up with Windows? Unfortunately, he can’t find an answer.

Spamhaus on MCI’s tolerance of spamming.

Marty on ER runs and contesting speeding tickets.

Also, I released a new program yesterday: MissingPy. It’s a link between Haskell and Python. This marks the fifthh major language link to Haskell, after C, C++, .NET, and Java. With my Python library, I was able to add bzip2 support to Haskell in under 10 lines of code. Sweet. This one binding knocks out most of the things on my todo list.

Haskell: My New Favorite Language

Programming

I discovered Haskell not long ago. I even wrote a bit about my initial impressions of it.

This is an amazing language. It’s been a long time since I’ve had this much fun programming. The Haskell community is also great; there are more geniuses there than anywhere I’ve seen before.

If you’re new to Haskell, try reading Haskell: The Craft of Functional Programming, 2nd Ed.. Or, if you want something online, try Yet Another Haskell Tutorial.