| The first language I learned was C. I don't claim to be an expert, but I'm comfortable enough with it that I can hack on an OS kernel with C. I have also learnt how to write compilers for simple languages (mostly from Appel's book). Through reading the book, I picked up ML. At first it was an uncomfortable transition from C, but I eventually loved writing ML code. Strong typing eliminates a lot of common errors, and the compiler really feels like a friend that's watching over you. Later on, I decided to pick up Haskell. Frankly it was a lot harder to get used to it (I still can't say I understand Haskell) because of how side effects in Haskell are made much more explicit than either C or ML. But after about a year and a half, I can now code comfortably in Haskell. And if someone let me choose a language that I can only code in for the rest of my life, it might actually just be Haskell. But ML and Haskell are not without their problems. C and functional languages like ML/Haskell have different problem domains. Haskell, being (almost) pure, is really good at modeling side-effect free computations. The compiling process is really a translation process (thus a computation), and it's easier to model it in Haskell. It is quite easy to mess things up in a language like C where side-effects show up everywhere, although if you're disciplined enough you could probably translate a Haskell program into C with some modifications. But Haskell/ML is definitely not for everything. I would not write a kernel in Haskell (although I do know people who have done it). With the runtime problem aside, it doesn't give me enough control over the bare metal it's running over (or it's probably I just don't know it well enough yet). I can't layout things exactly the way I want with Haskell, but with C, I can build structs, cast integers into pointers (might not be a good idea, but sometimes necessary when you're dealing with a kernel) and so on. With C it feels like you're the creator, taking care of everything, hence, you have much more responsibility on your shoulder. But with Haskell, the compiler takes care a lot of things for you if you're in the right problem domain, and it lets you focus on abstractions and the problem itself. Anyway, just a little thought. I love Haskell and C equally, and they're both absolutely wonderful languages. But try to keep yourself open and just try a little bit of new things at a time. Pretty soon you might find yourself designing compiler for your own language in Haskell (or C)! |