And then there's Haskell...

http://www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/Week-of-Mon-20070219/044101.html

by vimes656 • 16 years ago

92 19 16 years ago

antileet• 16 years ago

The page seems down for me. Fortunately, I happened to find the text in the cache.

"Jeff Bone <jbone at place.org> on Sat Feb 24 10:09:30 PST 2007

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On Feb 24, 2007, at 10:38 AM, Ken Meltsner wrote:

> Odd that this has come up -- I was just looking at Common Lisp and > Scheme implementations, as well as a smattering of Haskellish tools

And then there's Haskell...

Haskell is like "that girl." You know the one...

You never really went steady, but you'd run into her from time to time while knocking around in disreputable joints, usually late at night, every several months or so. She looked so hot, so sleek, so sexy, so expressive, so exotic. You'd end up back at her place and the night would just... take off. A complete blur of hot, sweaty, feverish, delirious, fumbling passion. You'd do things to each other... you'd do things to her, she'd do things to you... things that you're not even sure have names, that you're pretty sure are illegal almost anywhere. Even her kinks have kinks --- and after one of these nights, you'd realize that you yourself had a lot more kinks than you. And it wasn't just physical, it was --- cerebral. Ethereal. Transcendent. But it would all whiz by in a blur, and by morning you'd find yourself lightheaded, a bit confused, and stumbling homeward to your regular gal.

Over the next few days and weeks you'd find yourself occasionally drifting away, thinking about her. Haskell. You'd be there, banging away at your regular girl, and find yourself thinking "you know, if I was with Haskell, I'd be doing this completely differently." You'd think "I could be doing so much bigger and better stuff with Haskell." Now, your regular girl, she's not as exotic as Haskell. Pretty, maybe, if you're lucky. (Perhaps your regular girlfriend's name is Python. ;-) But not nearly as --- weird. Wild. Cool. Exciting. Don't get me wrong --- your girl, she's wonderful. You've got a wonderful relationship. She's --- comfortable. You can bang away at her all day and night. She's accommodating. Easy going. You work well together. But --- confidentially --- she's, well, maybe just a little bit boring. You'd catch yourself thinking these things, and the guilty pangs would get to you... You'd quash the thoughts, buckle down, and get back to banging away. Comfortable... there's a lot to be said for that, ya know? Comfortable... just keep telling yourself that.

Months would go by. Late some night you'd find yourself out, disreputable places again. Maybe that hacker bar, LtU. Somebody'd slip you an URL for some renegade paper, you know, one of those papers. You'd run into Haskell again. And the whole thing starts over.

Eventually, you're going to get the ultimatum. Haskell's ultimately just like any other girl on some level; she needs commitment. Eventually, after one night of wild, feverish, kinky, abstract passion, she's going to say to you: "All these times, and you don't understand me at all! You know, you're going to have to get serious, mister! I've got needs, too. You're going to have to get serious about my monads, or that's the last time you're going to play with them! Got it?"

...and then, you've got to make The Choice.

Chances are, you're going to go back to your regular gal. Haskell's just too much for any one man, probably. She leaves a trail of broken, brainy, embittered PhDs and former programmers behind her. She ruins you for the RealWorld. You can ride a while, but you probably can't go the distance with her. Go back to your regular gal and try not to think too much about what you've seen. Done. Felt. Thought.

Maybe you can salvage a little happiness; but it'll be hard. After all... you've tasted Haskell.

She's not like anything else.

jb"

zeteo• 16 years ago

>>You'd be there, banging away at your regular girl, and find yourself thinking "you know, if I was with Haskell, I'd be doing this completely differently." You'd think "I could be doing so much bigger and better stuff with Haskell."<<

This sounds a bit peculiar in light of the fact that Haskell is named after (male) logician Haskell Curry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_%28programming_language...

Deestan• 16 years ago

"I'd be doing this completely differently." indeed.

rudenoise• 16 years ago

Also, you can take Python (or one of the other regular girls/boys) with you to work in a lot places. You can bang Python for money quite easily.

I, for one, struggle to find anyone who'll pay me to bang Haskell. Maybe there's a way to carve our own business but it's a big strain on the relationship...

alrex021• 16 years ago

Any chick named Haskell that has Monads must be a dude :-)

DannoHung• 16 years ago

Keep this shit off of HN please. It is both content free and very sexist.

vimes6562• 16 years ago

I think it's a nice allegory of the struggle that many programmers feel when considering to switch to a more sophisticated language. How would you explain your struggle to someone who doesn't know about programming?

Why it's sexist? The sexes could be perfectly inversed. I guess the programming languages are depicted as girls because the author is male but it would apply as well to boyfriends.

Dementati• 16 years ago

I don't think this is sexist in any case. Sexism implies that the author suggests through the post that one sex is inferior to the other. I don't understand what could have possibly provoked such an interpretation.

ajscherer2• 16 years ago

This is an awful analogy because the author is using a scenario with which most hackers will have no familiarity (having crazy sex with a mysterious woman) to make a point about a scenario with which hackers are much more familiar (trying out a different programming language). Any point he wanted to make about Haskell would've been better made by talking about Haskell instead of his sexual fantasies.

Dollars to donuts the situation the author is describing has never actually happened to him.

thesz• 16 years ago

I think that name of that girl is Agda Second.

limmeau• 16 years ago

So you move in with Haskell the funny-named girl. You're in Heaven.

After a few months, you find out that there are some words that you say, some things that you do, that make her take her coat without a word, leave for a day and max out your credit card buying shoes. Sometimes you find out that it was your way of nodding that reminds her of Uncle Herbert. Sometimes you don't find out, and just decide not to say the word "mattress" any more.

(Whether that disturbs you enough to break up is up to you)

ajscherer2• 16 years ago

Gross

endergen• 16 years ago

I hate metaphors. This one is obtuse and not very meaningful.

hakl• 16 years ago

I don't think it's mean to be useful; just male nerds bonding over their (presumed) shared sexuality.

jmillikin• 16 years ago

I did not wake up this morning expecting to see programming language slashfic on HN (or at all, actually).

The author, like many programmers, assumes that you can only use one language at a time. That if you're using Haskell, or Python, or whatever, that you're not allowed to mix-and-match with other languages within the same project. But you can! Most languages have an FFI; just bind their interpreter's APIs and you can run Haskell and Python and Ruby and Lua and whatever from within the same project, or even the same process.

WildUtah• 16 years ago

I did not wake up this morning expecting to see programming language slashfic on HN (or at all, actually).

Forgot about rule 34 then?

And then there's Haskell...

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