Stack traces in GHCi, coming in GHC 8.0.1

simonmar.github.io

150 pointstimothyklim2 comments

I fear, implementation-wise the typical Common Lisp implementation quite a bit ahead of Haskell. In something like SBCL I can mix interpreted code, compiled code and optimized code freely. Stack traces are available in all modes, together with an advanced error handlich system able to deal with error conditions at runtime under program and/or user control. Creating new code at runtime compiled or interpreted is available all the time. Remote control (see Slime) of running Lisps via an IDE has been available for a long time.

On a Lisp Machine in the mid 80s, the error system would analyze the error, determine the author of the software system where the error happened and prepare an error mail with machine description, error description, extended stack trace ... to the maintainer's mail address. On a server machine, I would have it sending me such mails automatically...

These sorts of things make me depressed about the industry. It seems like so many fantastic ideas in the 80's (what you just described, erlang, smalltalk, etc, etc) were lost to the corporate dominance of sun and java. While java has certainly introduced some neat ideas, I can't help but wonder what the industry would be like if things had gone the other way.

Maybe I'm just looking at the past with rose colored glasses, but even using some of these languages today, they're still super compelling and elegant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com