> If we compare the set of people cognitively able to use PHP, to the set cognitively able to use Haskell...
These may be very different meanings of "use."
Using PHP, Java, etc. involves a fair bit of purely mechanical (think "human compiler") labor - cranking out boilerplate, and solving the same idiotic non-problems (all "patterns" spoken of by programmer types) again and again and again. Both of these are things that the average programmer can get quite good at. He will think of himself as a master craftsman. But what he really is: is a valve turner on a Newcomen steam engine. (http://www.loper-os.org/?p=388)
If Haskell were to be rid of all of the shortcomings you have described, the masses would still avoid it for the above reason. Most programming work - particularly paid work, that an ordinary person can reliably get hired to do - is of the idiotic makework variety. So a language which does not supply a steady stream of such makework (e.g. Common Lisp) will stay obscure.
If we were to banish the automatable makework, only the intrinsic complexity of intrinsically-complex problems would remain. And we would need about the same number of computer programmers as we need neurosurgeons. (Fewer, because there are many meat bags and they are always diseased. But engineering problems, once solved, stay solved - or they would, in a sane world.)
Comments
> If we compare the set of people cognitively able to use PHP, to the set cognitively able to use Haskell...
These may be very different meanings of "use."
Using PHP, Java, etc. involves a fair bit of purely mechanical (think "human compiler") labor - cranking out boilerplate, and solving the same idiotic non-problems (all "patterns" spoken of by programmer types) again and again and again. Both of these are things that the average programmer can get quite good at. He will think of himself as a master craftsman. But what he really is: is a valve turner on a Newcomen steam engine. (http://www.loper-os.org/?p=388)
If Haskell were to be rid of all of the shortcomings you have described, the masses would still avoid it for the above reason. Most programming work - particularly paid work, that an ordinary person can reliably get hired to do - is of the idiotic makework variety. So a language which does not supply a steady stream of such makework (e.g. Common Lisp) will stay obscure.
If we were to banish the automatable makework, only the intrinsic complexity of intrinsically-complex problems would remain. And we would need about the same number of computer programmers as we need neurosurgeons. (Fewer, because there are many meat bags and they are always diseased. But engineering problems, once solved, stay solved - or they would, in a sane world.)