Every time I make an investment in learning and using a new language, core language developers leaving is one thing I worry about. The reason I've stuck with Haskell for almost 6 years is because the more involved and familiar I get with the community, the more I confident I am in the abundance of very clever people ;-P. I have no doubt the Haskell community will be able to fill the (massive) gap left by Simon.
I sincerely hope that the Haskell community rises to the challenge to fill the leadership void left by these remarkable computer scientists. What a beautiful language, with such beautiful people speaking it!
[disclaimer haven't used haskell for a decade, so this is pure speculation and not intended as any kind of informed criticism.]<p>is it possible that now would be a good time (just because it is a time when things seem to be changing) to simplify / clean up haskell? what i am wondering / asking is whether more recent additions to the language (type system) are generalisations of earlier features. in which case, maybe the earlier features could be dropped?<p>is anything like that possible or reasonable? it's a fairly old language, which has evolved a lot, and it stuck me it might be a question worth asking... (something like python 3 i guess, but a bit more meaty)
A very special thank you from me to Simon and Simon for creating what I consider to be the coolest language and the smartest compiler out there. Haskell has made me a lot better programmer than what I was before I started out with it.<p>I really should take a look at the GHC source and see if there's anything I can chip in with. I might have some skills that I could help with, maybe looking at the LLVM backend or something that I'm at least a little familiar with.<p>I recently wrote an LLVM compiler backend for a toy language. The compiler was written in Haskell, of course (it isn't a coincidence that "research" languages are excellent for writing compilers). It's miles away from what GHC is but maybe I learned some relevant skills along the way that I could apply to GHC development.<p>Here's my compiler for anyone who is interested:
<a href="https://github.com/rikusalminen/funfun/tree/uncurryllvm" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/rikusalminen/funfun/tree/uncurryllvm</a>
Discussion on reddit:<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/14bvtz/the_end_of_an_era_and_the_dawn_of_a_new_one/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/14bvtz/the_end_of_a...</a>
Am I the only one extremely worried about Haskell's future after Marlow's departure?<p>spj's email is wonderful and a great tribute to a fantastic developer, but I'm having a hard time seeing what exactly there is to rejoice about.<p>And reading deeper into that email, it's becoming clear to me that spj himself seems to be hinting that he is scaling down his involvement in Haskell as well...