Many people in the programming world have asked this one question – Where is Haskell? Is it safe? Is it alright?
It was first published in the world in 1990 and was named after an American mathematician, Haskell Brooks Curry. According to the Haskell wiki: It is a polymorphically statically typed, lazy, purely functional language, quite different from most other programming languages. Curry’s work in the field of mathematics and logic has been set as the foundation of functional programming languages. This programming language is based on lambda calculus; thus, the logo is a lambda sign. It was developed to solve complex problems and manage software systems.
But, what makes us ask this question? Let’s find out.
Why is Haskell not famous?
While being a functional programming language, it does have some downsides to it:
- The community is very mathematical, and this can sometimes be overwhelming because the language is heavy and mainly revolves around mathematical functions. This has proven to be tedious for many programmers unless one is really into it.
- It has a rich library, but the documentation is not user-friendly. There are very few tutorials that teach you the language and are hard to find. So, for a beginner, learning the language can be challenging.
- Specific syntax and language features are tough to understand, and the modules are slightly a mess.
- It defaults to lazy evaluation, which is a good thing, but it can tarnish the performance. Understanding what is happening in the background is also not a smooth path, and it can get tricky.
- Debugging the program can be challenging.
- Haskell provides many forms of mutability, but they are more challenging to understand than in any other programming language.
Is Haskell really dead then?
Well, not entirely. There is a small community of developers that are working tirelessly to keep the programming language alive. As of now, we speculate that it will not disappear, but one cannot say for the future.
Also, many big tech firms are using Haskell. Here is a list of companies that use it for certain software system development:
- Meta
- IBM
- AT&T
- Bank of America
- Barclays Capital
- NVIDIA
- Microsoft.
Projects built on Haskell
- Fighting spam with Haskell by Engineering at Meta.
- Haskell in the Newsroom by New York Times.
- Galois and their case studies.
Final Thoughts
You can still use the programming language to develop projects, and it is not entirely dead because the Haskell community keeps it up and running. We also mentioned how big tech firms like Meta, Microsoft, etc., still use Haskell to deal with complex software issues. We hope the language doesn’t completely vanish and stays.
Happy Coding!
Also, check: How to Install Haskell on Windows?
