Re:Lisp and Haskell (2017)
by dumb22233 on Sunday July 15, 2018 @09:56AM
(#17535241)
I think that haskell is fine when your data structures are simple, for example tuples of length < 10. When you need more general structures, like lists of lists of element of any type, then Lisp is a better fit. For example, I don't know any computer algebra system (cas) designed in Haskell, but have the free CAS Maxima programmed in Lisp.
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When do you have lists of lists of elements of any type?
What can you even do given such a value?
You could use XML data structures in which some of the elements are programs that you can execute (program is data), other are graphic, other are links to more XML data and so on. And your program is able to process that information.
Then what you have is not "anything". You have an expression problem:
Either each element has some "handler" that does the right thing for that data type.
Or you have a set of cases that each data can be, and you handle them all.
Neither is just "any type". And static types are very suitable to describe either.
The handler being a typeclass in Haskell vs the enumerated cases being pattern matching?