Python, Clojure, Haskell: Factual Releases Drivers That Matter | Hacker News Reader

Python, Clojure, Haskell: Factual Releases Drivers That Matter

blog.factual.com

53 pointsdirtyvagabond10 comments

Very interesting company and products. Here is a neat simple example in Python from the blog:

  from factual import Factual
  factual = Factual(YOUR_KEY, YOUR_SECRET)
 
  factual.table("places").search("sushi santa monica")

Anyone on HN uses Factual in their products?

I've been impressed by the number of programming languages they support, especially the less main stream ones like Clojure. These guys also host many tech events in the LA area on all sorts of subjects. Kudos to them.

If I remember correctly, Factual uses Clojure a fair amount. They have some functional nerds over there.

"Haskell is the king of purely-functional, lazy, statically-typed languages."

Add enough qualifiers and every language is the king of something.

Intentionally ostracizing entire developer communities is counter-productive. Where APIs are concerned, all hackers are created equal, regardless of language. That is, in my mind, the beauty of APIs - they can be accessed equally regardless of your chosen development environment or language.

Thanks jonmarkgo, good point. Not intending to ostracize anyone here, in fact quite the opposite. Working hard to be as inclusive as we possibly can. 8-]

I doubt they actually think a Haskell client is going to be one that "matters". It's a fun bit of software, take it for what it is.

Also, if you google "factual api", you get http://developer.factual.com/display/docs/Factual+Developer+... as the top result. Unless you're faulting them for not releasing wrappers in all languages simultaneously, I don't really understand your point.

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that they didn't have libraries available in other languages (they clearly state that they do in the blog post) - I was mostly just commenting on the tone of the post and how it might ostracize certain developer communities.

If they already have support for Ruby, PHP, Java, Objective-C, and server-side Javascript, then a post that claims Haskell and Clojure are the languages that "really matter" can probably be safely assumed to be a joke.

How are they ostracising anyone? For each language, they are praising it, offering a nice idiomatic API library and following common distribution practice (PyPI, clojars, cabal).

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