Re:Is Haskell a good choice for software security?
by spekcular on Friday December 17, 2021 @02:17PM
(#29597022)
The question was: For what problem (or problem domain) is Haskell better than Rust? (Back here, for instance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29595022).
The links you gave provide general information about Haskell, but do not answer that question, from what I can see. I don't want a single sentence reason, just a compelling one.
Again: I'm not doing this to be adversarial. A decent number of people seem to really love Haskell and extol its virtues. So I'm trying to carefully check that I'm not missing something.
Re:Is Haskell a good choice for software security?
by the_af on Friday December 17, 2021 @03:01PM
(#29597631)
> The question was: For what problem (or problem domain) is Haskell better than Rust?
Haskell is a general purpose language, so it's good for any domain well served by a general purpose language. The rest is the list of benefits of statically typed, lazy first, pure functional programming languages.
"Haskell or Rust?" is not a question that can be meaningfully and objectively answered in a comment on HN.
What I cannot do: provide you with a single sentence stating why you should use Haskell. I don't think anyone can. For the record, I found your single sentence about Rust totally unconvincing as well; I do find Rust compelling because of tutorials, long articles I read about it, and a workshop I once did with a Rust practitioner. None of this is equivalent to debating/convincing on HN.
(Similarly, I find Go not compelling because I had to use it for my day job and everything about it made me chafe).
So my advice to you: read the links I provided, and keep in mind they are just a starting point. Do a workshop. Work on a midsize problem, maybe also write some Advent of Code Haskell solutions.
Or not. It's ok to just go with your gut feeling and focus on Rust. There's a finite amount of time you have available for exploring technologies. Rust will serve you well.