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quadrifoliateyesterday at 11:21 PM1 replyview on HN

> Racket / Scheme / I dare say even Haskell would just be so much simpler for learners.

I have used all three languages; and you clearly have no idea of the notion of usability of a language. So many things contradict this, let me list them off the top of my head

- Getting a running toolchain working: Prexisting (most OSes bundle a Python interpreter) or a package install away for Python. Scheme / Racket is some odd mix of custom IDEs with Dr. in the name, or someone's 20 page essay on how SLIME is the best thing ever. Haskell gets into odd stuff with ghci, cabal, and stack, and all of them are extremely slow.

- Tutorials: Python has a ton of them, they all get you printing to stdout and calculating things in about 10 minutes. Scheme / Racket typically spends multiple chapters navel-gazing about lists, cons, and such. Haskell is actually better in terms of the Hello World stuff, but ghci v/s ghc bites you again; and no one has a clear idea of which one to use.

- Advanced concepts: Python has mainstream but halfhearted OOP; and things like decorators and metaprogramming. Quickly intelligible if you learned something else like Java or C++. Or if you learned shell scripts you can get quite a bit done with just imperative. Racket/Scheme: 3 chapters in and you're still trying to figure out tail recursion. Haskell: Instead of just doing fun things with take and foldl you're being hit with trivia about typeclasses.


Replies

fn-motetoday at 12:41 AM

> Quickly intelligible if you learned something else like Java or C++

You’re replying to a post making assertions about beginners.

That doesn’t usually mean people with 4 years programming experience picking up a new language.

Racket: criticizing for having a beginner-friendly IDE doesn’t make a lot of sense. There’s always Magic Racket for VSCode for the others.

I guess you’re not starting people with “How to Design Programs” because that’s pictures and animations for ages.

Haskell: that was funny but an absurd criticism ghc vs ghci?? Nobody has that problem. The other stuff - valid but lead with it instead of trolling.

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