Haskell is Not For Production and Other Tales - Katie Miller - LCA2016
Katie Miller gave an excellent talk about Haskell covering:
- Haskell is at the heart of Sigma at Facebook handling more than 1 million requests / second
- Haxl is a Haskell framework in Sigma and is used for fighting malicious activity on Facebook
- Haxl is open source.
- Haskell's origins are academic.
- Haskell is used widely in industry. Katie listed quite a few.
Why Haskell?
- The ability to reason about code, from:
- Purity
- Strong static typing
- Abstract away from concurrency
- Haskell performs:
- As much as 3x as fast as it's predecessor
- 30 times as fast for the user experience.
The Myth of Haskell Being Difficult
- Not necessarily difficult but it different and that result sin friction.
- Expectations:
- Concepts don't neatly to familiar languages.
- It's a journey teaching you a new way to think.
- Abstractions:
- Abstract concepts can take time to get a handle on.
- Type Errors
- Can be a little difficult to explain to new users
- Worth mastering due to increase of productivity.
Teaching Haskell
- Didn't mention monads.
- Stuck to notations and implicit concurrency.
- Created conversation space to discuss issues.
- Results exceeded expectations.
Hiring Difficulty
- There are more people wanting to work in Haskell than there are Haskell jobs.
- An embarrassment of talent riches.
Haskell Community Difficulty
- Community may have forgotten how to communicate to new people.
- Keep in mind what it as like to be new.
- Documentation for libraries needs to improve.
- Work to create diverse and welcoming community.
- Be technical brutal but personally respectful.
Code
- Haskell is not immune to bad code.
"Using functional programming is a conclusion from a goal, not the goal itself" - Brian McKenna
- The legacy of Haskell is spreading good ideas and this was an original goal.
- Haskell's difference brings both benefits and challenges.
"Open Source = opportunity" - Katie Miller
Conclusion: Haskell is for production.
