>Who are these people, were they professional programmers? How hard were they trying? Perhaps they just wanted a better Java?
How hard should they have tried? Should they have burnt the midnight oil?
This Java you talk about, is still in the top 1-3 languages by programmers, is it not?
And supposedly Haskell is easier (according to the parent comment) but at the same time needs people to try harder to get it than Java? It can't be both...
>I've worked on very large codebases in many large organisations with C++, Java and Haskell. Haskell certainly wasn't the horror story.
No, but it was the new novelty on greenfield staff. Easy to start as better. Java wasn't the horror story in 2000 either.
> This Java you talk about, is still in the top 1-3 languages by programmers, is it not?
I'm disappointed that you appear to judge technology based on popularity. By this argument, JavaScript trumps Java.
> And supposedly Haskell is easier (according to the parent comment) but at the same time needs people to try harder to get it than Java? It can't be both...
I can assure you, having learned both, that understanding Java and all its idioms/patterns is at least as hard as learning Haskell, especially if one seeks to build concurrent software (where the intricacies of Java's complex memory model cannot be ignored).
Because of the immense amount of investment already made, likely these people give up when they realise they cannot make much use of it in Haskell, at least not at first.
> No, but it was the new novelty on greenfield staff.
You've made an incorrect assumption. The Haskell codebases I have worked on, in both cases, have been large and over a decade old.
Anyway, my original post was about the controversy of subtyping, not Haskell versus Java.
He said Haskell was simpler than C++ which might be true. Doesn't mean it's easier. I'm more familiar with F# and C#. I'm guessing that the F# language is simpler in as far as having fewer language concepts. But many people struggle and would find it more difficult, at first. Brainfuck is even simpler yet even harder for many people.
Where I work we do have some business people successfully writing Haskell.
I've worked on very large codebases in many large organisations with C++, Java and Haskell. Haskell certainly wasn't the horror story.