Comment by one-punch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by one-punch | Hacker News Reader

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> I really wished there was a GC-ed but strictly-evaluating Haskell.

To answer this question literally, there are PureScript (transpile to JavaScript), Idris (dependently typed), OCaml, and Standard ML (as discarded1023 pointed out).

But I think the wish for a strictly-evaluating Haskell is sometimes in fact a wish for a Haskell with more predictable performance (especially in memory usage). If so, the Linear Type/Arrow of recent GHC may fit the bill [1].

My wish is for Haskell to have a better runtime [2] with optimal reductions (with more predictable performance and without GC) [3], which could have Rust-like performance without lifetimes, while being lazy.

[1]: https://www.tweag.io/blog/2017-03-13-linear-types/

[2]: https://discourse.haskell.org/t/high-order-virtual-machine-h...

[3]: https://github.com/HigherOrderCO/HVM

And faster Compile times haskell compile times relative to golang are super slow

Golang prioritizes compile time (hence it took them so long to get Generics), which Rust and Haskell are unlikely to beat, as they both prioritize high-levels of abstractions (more compile time for zero cost abstractions at runtime).

That said, since GHC is implemented in Haskell, the compile time will likely improve if linear type/arrow, or a better runtime (such as optimal reductions), is used by GHC itself.

what is linear type/arrow?

Linear Type/Arrow makes sure values are consumed exactly once (as they cannot be duplicated nor destroyed), and such runtime can be used for efficient resource management without reference counting or garbage collection [1].

For Linear Type/Arrow in Haskell, see [2][3][4]. For Linear Type (or Relevant Type) in Rust, see [5].

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16100840 "Linear types can change the world"

[2]: https://www.tweag.io/blog/2017-03-13-linear-types/ "Linear types make performance more predictable"

[3]: https://www.tweag.io/blog/2023-01-26-linear-constraints-free... "Linear Constraints: the problem with O(1) freeze"

[4]: https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/v3gouc/linear_text... "Linear Text Builder: up to 20x faster than alternatives"

[5]: https://faultlore.com/blah/linear-rust/ "The Pain Of Real Linear Types in Rust"

Go lang is just a different class of languages. One picks rust or Haskell or standard ML due to an expressive type system whereas Go features a simple type system

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