Another day, another programming language feels the heat from AI.A prominent Haskell-based software platform is shifting new development to Python, with its founder arguing that Haskell's tooling and ecosystem have been slow to adapt to AI-assisted development.“Haskell is in real danger,” warned Scarf founder Avi Press, in a post entitled “After 7 years in production, Scarf has reluctantly moved away from Haskell.”
“AI is here to stay. The people and ecosystems that use it well are going to move much faster than the people and ecosystems that do not.”
Press’ post set off a firestorm of controversy within the Haskell community, which is small but vocal, and likely felt the sting of one of its most prominent users defecting to the comparatively toy-like Python to better serve the needs of agents.“Trying to change the language to work better for some metric of ‘better’ with AI is foolish for many many reasons,” wrote one user on Reddit. “It's foolish to try to change to LLMs in a kneejerk fashion because no one knows what's on the horizon.”Putting the fun into functional programmingHaskell, a functional programming language that debuted in 1990, may not appeal to fast-moving startups. It ranks No. 46 in the latest TIOBE index of programming language popularity, with a rating of less than half a percent.Favoring recursion and immutable data over conventional imperative loops and mutable state, the language's mathematical underpinnings can intimidate even experienced developers. Nevertheless, it has attracted a highly dedicated following, particularly within academia.Press has been one of Haskell’s most vocal proponents, and has even served on the language’s foundation board. “Learning it made me a much better programmer,” he admitted. Press used Haskell to build Scarf, which provides usage analytics for open source software. In a 2023 talk entitled “Why Haskell is a Terrible Choice for Startups (and why we picked it anyway),” Press admitted it was difficult to find Haskell programmers, yet the language’s rigorous type safety comes with other benefits. Refactoring is a cinch, which is valuable as business priorities change. Also, documents can be auto-generated from data types. Plus, once you get the hang of it, programming in Haskell is downright fun, Press argued.
