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Haskell vs. Erlang for bittorent clients (jlouisramblings.blogspot.com)
74 points by noss on April 27, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments


This is how language comparisons should be.

He's got a few years with both languages and he writes it after he's made something substantial in them. He tells us up front that he's subjective and that he loves static typing so we can take his words the correct way: with a grain of salt.

Out with the boring feature comparisons table-style and in with a fluid, with lack of a better wording, talk about his positive and negative experiences. For the things that matter are not syntax, dynamic or static typing but how the developing process is. Tools, debuggers and techniques are far more important and I think he did a fine job describing them.

If I wanna be picky about anything then it would be about his conclusion, it felt like he didn't reach anything definitive. But then again it's a breath of fresh air against the otherwise so flamy language discussions and what do I know? Perhaps both Erlang and Haskell are good languages! Gasp


I checked again recently, and no computer language was handed down to use by an ascended being. Thus, I believe that all programming languages involve trade offs.

I like these sorts of comparisons because he actively discusses what he gained and lost with each language, and where the other language would have done better or worse.

I think the conclusion was fine, but just not as strong as we might have been used to. Ultimately, it comes down to a preference, where a preference is defined to be the sum total all the different axes on which you want to optimize, from LoC to IO efficiency to prettiness to just-makes-sense.


> For the things that matter are not syntax, dynamic or static typing but how the developing process is.

They do matter somewhat, and the author says a bit about them. I agree, his comparison is civil and informed.


I appreciate how he spends the first minute establishing that he's a much better programmer than me.




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