Re:Do notation considered harmful
by lmm on Wednesday April 29, 2020 @05:56AM
(#23017360)
> Haskell rejects the imperative model, yet it attempts to appear imperative to be palatable to more people while retaining a pure functional model under the hood. But that causes it to be criticized by the pure-minded.
The point of do notation is to rebuild imperative programming atop a rigorous foundation. Haskell is a deliberately flexible language: if you want to do imperative programming in it, you can (as long as you do it properly). But most users eventually find that the imperative model isn't actually something you want or need, even if you thought you did when you started.
> So who is it for?
People for whom the defect rate of traditional imperative programming is too high, or for whom achieving an acceptable defect rate in a traditional language takes too much time.
The point of do notation is to rebuild imperative programming atop a rigorous foundation. Haskell is a deliberately flexible language: if you want to do imperative programming in it, you can (as long as you do it properly). But most users eventually find that the imperative model isn't actually something you want or need, even if you thought you did when you started.
> So who is it for?
People for whom the defect rate of traditional imperative programming is too high, or for whom achieving an acceptable defect rate in a traditional language takes too much time.