Why is Haskell an underestimated programming language?

Haskell is a functional programming language whose structure is very different from the popular JavaScript, PHP, Python, or Java - they are imperative or mixed development languages. Nevertheless, many Haskell experts believe that developers using imperative languages should at least try to learn purely functional development to understand the principles of programming itself and the difference between functional and imperative development.

Functional programming

Functional programming is one of the priority areas of software development today. It is fundamentally different from the imperative, object-oriented paradigm. For example, while the imperative approach uses instructions, the functional uses functions, a set of rules to be executed without a strict sequence of actions.

Haskell, Erlang, Rust, Clojur are prime representatives of functional programming. On the other side are the giants such as C++, Java. Of course, the principles of the first group of languages are not applicable everywhere, but in their areas, they are practically irreplaceable.

Functional programming is becoming more and more in demand, due to a number of factors. For example, back in the 90s, the Haskell programming language appeared, which is still actively used. Erlang, Scala, Clojure can also be in the same category. All such programming languages share one advantage. It is possible to write competitive software products. That's why problems such as mutual locks and thread safety disappear when using them.

Why Haskell?

A great feature of Haskell is that it supports lazy evaluation, which can speed up the program, reduce the memory load, and make the code more modular. Lazy evaluations performed when the program needs them, not when the developer specifies them.

Usually, arguments are computed, and then the function is executed. In programming languages that use lazy evaluation, this process is delayed, and function arguments are computed only for real need, not at the point where the developer has specified them. For example, if the value of some function is now not needed and not used, Haskell will not compute its arguments.

Application of Haskell

Currently, Haskell is used in the most complicated and sophisticated areas, like space, fintech, and genetics. Haskell is used quite often in the financial sector - large banks and other companies in that market use it to develop their own tools. Several pharmaceutical and bioengineering companies, like Edna, use it for data structuring and analysis.  Enterprises specifically use Haskell because of the guaranteed accuracy of error-free calculations.

Haskell is often used to write tools for word processing, parsing, and creating filter systems for handling spam. Haskell's structure makes it easy to input language rules, including Russian, and train algorithms to find links to it.

Check this blog about the top use cases, where Haskell is the main programming language for production.

In terms of professional development, Haskell helps you better understand and apply the following approaches:

• Decomposing business logic into smaller and more independent parts, which then can be combined.

• Expressing program states and different logics using data types.

• Using algebraic abstractions to describe a high-level interface.

• Multi-threaded programming using more convenient primitives.

For example, separating business logic into pure data checking functions and database side-effect functions is useful in both PHP and Java, but in Haskell that the compiler forces writing in this style.

Developers also use Haskell to create tools for testing code in other programming languages. Also, it used to analyze programming languages.

At the same time, Haskell used for web development, can be compiled with TypeScript to run in a browser or on a server as fast machine code that can easily handle tens of thousands of simultaneous connections.

FAQ

Why would you use Haskell?

Highly expressive, easy to translate subject matter into code, optimal combination of imperative and functional paradigms. Easy to build abstractions over data and algorithms, which allows you to think about the problem without getting distracted by unrelated minutiae.

Why is Haskell so good?

Haskell supports lazy evaluations, which speeds up the program, reduces memory usage, and makes the code more modular. Lazy evaluations are done when the program needs them, not when the developer tells them to be done.

What is Haskell best used for?

Tasks that do not tolerate mistakes. And also for everything that involves calculations, conversions, and data analysis. But thanks to its brevity and rigor, Haskell used for just about anything.

Why is Haskell not popular?

One of the characteristic qualities of Haskell as a language and community is that they did not seek to become popular together. Instead, they built a logical path to solving real-world problems, rather than getting into every programmer's heart. Plus, most people are not familiar with functional programming.