I can't like this post enough. It affirms everything I believe to be true about developing software using modern languages. I wish more developers would invest more time in learning better tools.
It's funny. I want to either give your comment a "+1 Me too!" response, or a huge rant on software quality and the language quagmire we're in with weak (C++/Java) or missing (JS/Python) type systems.
To throw a statement out there without substantiation, and then cowardly running away, I'll say that Haskell feels as easy as Python, where in Python you have to do a little thinking about what types of objects get passed where, often while debugging, in Haskell you have to figure out the types of data/functions while compiling. The result, I feel, is about the same amount of work. The difference is that the Haskell result is substantially, /substantially/ easier to use in larger projects.
Again, that's without substantiation, and with me immediately running away in cowardice!
Haskell is definitely not as "easy" as Python but I actually think it's more straight forward than Python is. There's more cognitive work up-front but the pay off is very big in terms of stability, maintainability, etc... in the long run. I actually think it costs less in amount of work to do something in Haskell than in Python (and Erlang, even).
When I have to drop into Python or Javascript I feel like I'm pulling out my MiniTonka toys vs. the actual dump truck out back by the barn. When I went from PHP to Python it felt like that too.
As it stands though, I write systems critical services in HS now and keep the web app stuff in Python. I have written two production web apps in Snap and I loved every minute of it.
I guess saying "This." didn't seem verbose enough.
Let me propose an incredibly controversial idea: Haskell isn't a better tool, it's just yet another tool. Which is aggressively promoted not so much with actual benefits, but by trying to shame people who prefer other tools by calling them dullards and telling them that they don't know what they are doing.
"This." is an abomination, a pox upon the English language, and, what's more, serves absolutely no purpose on a site with little arrows to vote for things you like.
> by trying to shame people who prefer other tools by calling them dullards and telling them that they don't know what they are doing.
I think this a minority but I have seen this. Generally with languages that have their roots in the more science side of things there is an air of elitism. For example quite often a venn diagram is posted which implies programs (or programmers, can't remember) not made/using type systems are worse.
