[HN Gopher] The Haskell Elephant in the Room
___________________________________________________________________
The Haskell Elephant in the Room
Author : tenslisi
Score : 307 points
Date : 2020-07-30 13:10 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.stephendiehl.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.stephendiehl.com)
| kreetx wrote:
| Although I think this article is informative about pointing out
| the crypto connection (there sure are many well known haskell
| devs related to crypto, to Cardano specifically), but I think
| it's way too negative. There are scams in cryptocurrencies, sure,
| but do some of them have real value? I think they do.
|
| But perhaps somebody knows the answer to these questions instead:
|
| - is Cardano itself a scam? (= are the people related immoral?)
|
| - are there more cryptocurrencies developed in haskell and are
| these scams?
|
| Other than that, I don't really see the influence on the
| ecosystem - what are some concrete examples here?
| rstarast wrote:
| You made me look up the IOHK (Cardano developers) team page
| again, it's hilarious: https://iohk.io/en/team/
| ogre_magi wrote:
| Haskelephant
| alexmingoia wrote:
| _"For a while it has been a public secret the Haskell ecosystem
| has become increasingly entangled with an unsavoury variety in
| the cryptocurrency sector as one of primary mechanisms for
| funding development."_
|
| And those would be? I code in Haskell every day and I have no
| idea what he's talking about.
| markhollis wrote:
| I'm not an expert and I don't do value judgments, but I think
| he's talking about something called 'smart contracts'. Haskell
| would make it easier to verify smart contracts. I thought he
| was talking about use cases like those as Cardano and with
| "some of the very founding contributors" he meant Philip Wadler
| (amongst others).
|
| EDIT: didn't want to imply that Cardano is a shady company.
| LargeWu wrote:
| No, he's not talking about the technical features of
| blockchain. He's talking about the general shadiness of a
| nontrivial number of actors in the cryptocurrency sector
| itself, which have had a propensity for deceptive marketing,
| and even outright fraud.
|
| His concern is that if Haskell gets the reputation of being
| beholden to these interests it will make the Haskell
| ecosystem undesirable to legitimate actors.
| dgellow wrote:
| But... who actually thinks this way when they select
| technologies? If Go was used for a lot of crypto scam, I
| wouldn't spend a second thinking about it when I'm deciding
| to use it for my non-scam, non-crypto's project.
|
| I have difficulty to understand how it is an issue that a
| programming language is used for a niche that has bad
| reputation.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| This is one of those articles that attempts to talk about some
| situation to make it more common knowledge, but is written in
| such an incredibly abstract way that all you can really take
| away from it is 'some unknown people are upset about some
| unknown issue'.
|
| I feel like this 'elephant in the room' article doesn't tell me
| what the elephant is, why it's in the room, or why people don't
| want it to be in the room.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Just look at the final section, quoted:
|
| > Painfully, some of the very founding contributors to
| Haskell itself are the ones deepest involved in this ring.
|
| > In this new era the Haskell community itself has simply
| become a tool to buy legitimacy and pump token values. The
| reputation of our community is now used to defraud the public
| and convince non-technical users of the soundness of an
| utterly unsound investment.
|
| > I have avoided names ... however core Haskell companies
| such as Well-Typed, Tweag and FP Complete have been deeply
| complicit in building up this crypto industry for years now.
|
| The article isn't easy to skim, and I think that's the point.
| The author wants to focus more on why cryptocurrency is a
| scam, and less on who's guilty.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Maybe it's just me, but these sentences are so vague and
| indirect as to mean nothing to me.
|
| I think it's a shame because if you're going to accuse
| someone of something, at least make your accusation clear
| and direct so they can respond to it specifically.
| codemac wrote:
| I know dfinity was a big one, they had a huge ICO and lots of
| haskellers.
| burkaman wrote:
| Anecdotally, almost every Haskell job posting I've ever seen is
| for a bank or some kind of cryptocurrency thing. I've never
| done a real analysis and I don't have any numbers to back that
| up, that's just what it feels like as someone who passively
| watches the Haskell job market.
| [deleted]
| krick wrote:
| I don't really care for how naive this description of "how
| economy works" is or isn't, but being upset that instead of
| Haskell being used virtually nowhere, it is finally used
| _somewhere_ is pretty hilarious.
| chriswarbo wrote:
| Haskell's unofficial motto is "avoid 'success at all costs'",
| which is referenced near the end of the article. Piggybacking
| on crypto fraud would be a cost that's worth avoiding.
| Vosporos wrote:
| Very well-put, thank you.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Very much a generic anti-cryptocurrency rant, and very little
| haskell-specific clarifications. I understand not wanting to name
| specific projects (Cardano comes to mind; " _Cardano is a
| blockchain platform built on the groundbreaking Ouroboros proof-
| of-stake consensus protocol, and developed using the Haskell
| programming language: a functional programming language that
| enables Cardano to pursue evidence-based development, for
| unparalleled security and stability._ "), however it would be
| interesting to have some examples of haskell developments that
| are fueled specifically by cryptocurrency applications. FTA: "
| _the economic machinery that shapes everything we do and informs
| the problems we chose to spend our cycles on_ "; what are these
| specific problems?
| danpalmer wrote:
| > very little haskell-specific clarifications
|
| This is about Haskell-the-ecosystem, not Haskell-the-
| technology. In that way I think it's a valuable contribution.
|
| Stephen is a well known and respected part of the Haskell
| ecosystem, and has written many popular blog posts about the
| language and ecosystem.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I agree. Cardano and Pact are fine projects.
|
| Pact (a not complete Turing language for blockchain) is also
| interesting Haskell code to read and to learn from.
| the_af wrote:
| > _very little haskell-specific clarifications_
|
| The author mentions at least three Haskell-related companies,
| such as FP Complete, and says he wants to avoid naming specific
| people for the time being.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| If the only charge is that haskell consulting companies are
| writing code for cryptocurrency projects, then I have
| misunderstood the article first time around. I assumed the
| problem was with developments in the haskell language itself.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| It does affect Haskell language itself (GHC anyway). See
| moomin's comment.
| the_af wrote:
| Exactly this. The article is not about the Haskell language
| itself -- i.e. not a rant about technical issues -- but
| about its community and consulting companies getting
| (allegedly) entangled with crypto businesses. "Making a
| deal with the devil".
|
| That's why the author rants about crypto and not about
| Haskell itself.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| I am not sure what is "alleged" about Haskell
| consultancies getting cryptocurrency money. It is pretty
| easy to confirm. Both Well-Typed and FP Complete got
| money from Cardano and posted to their blog what amount
| to advertisements for Cardano. Google a bit if you care.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _...posted to their blog what amount to advertisements
| for Cardano._ "
|
| And that would seem to be exactly what Stephen is
| complaining about.
| the_af wrote:
| "Alleged" as in "the article claims this, but I
| personally haven't double-checked it so don't want to
| make my post sound as I myself were sure this was the
| case". "Alleged" doesn't mean "unfounded".
|
| I've written enough comments on HN to know that if I
| don't word it this way, someone will inevitably start
| arguing with me as if the assertion was mine.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| There is also DAML: https://github.com/digital-asset/daml
| drcode wrote:
| It doesn't work to talk about an "elephant in the room" and
| then not name names. The whole point of the idiom is that
| you're criticizing other people for not concretely naming
| things.
| analyte123 wrote:
| This is an article about a giant pot of questionably earned
| money buying influence in a software ecosystem that he's been a
| big part of. But this is hardly the first time for this, in
| other cases the pot of questionably earned money came from
| selling people's data for ads or from Windows licenses.
|
| The question in all of these cases is what specific bad
| influences the money can have on the software ecosystem and how
| community standards and governance can mitigate them. I don't
| really see a lot of answers in this article besides ill-defined
| ethical compromise of developers. I skimmed the book he
| mentioned (The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing
| Extremism) which sounds interesting but it doesn't really make
| its own case very well: half of the "extremist" citations are
| from anonymous online commenters and you can't go 2 paragraphs
| without straight up name-calling and ham-fisted guilt by
| association.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| There is degree of questionableness and I think it makes
| sense to say that some money is more questionably earned than
| others.
| seagreen wrote:
| > however it would be interesting to have some examples of
| haskell developments that are fueled specifically by
| cryptocurrency applications
|
| An article saying "this sector of our community is bad and
| scamming retail investors" is already burning MAD BRIDGES and
| putting an enormous target on your back.
|
| "Bob Smith and Joe Brown, specifically, are scamming retail
| investors" is going even a little beyond that. It's just not
| necessary.
|
| EDIT: For the writer of the article, that is. We in the peanut
| gallery obviously want all the details, which is why a little
| detective work is often required in these cases.
| moomin wrote:
| https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/merge_requests/2231
|
| is an example.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Key word here is Asterius. Cardano is funding Asterius,
| Haskell to WebAssembly compiler, Asterius is based on GHC,
| and changes convenient for Asterius are being merged to GHC.
| exdsq wrote:
| This isn't really true - several members of the team have
| been contributing to GHC since before Cardano was a thing.
| mkatx wrote:
| I would equate crypto currency more with trading collectables. If
| Haskell was financed with profits from trading magic the
| gathering cards, would it be different? Some people trading MTG
| cards might be unsavory, some might try to scam you, but that's
| the market, not the collectable itself.
|
| Because this article, in my opinion, misidentified the scam, I
| just don't agree that crypto profit supporting Haskell is a
| problem. If there are unsavory actors in the community, that's
| also a different thing, and isn't the fault of crypto.
|
| It seems this piece leaves no room between scammer and victim.
| It's certainly just an opinion that crypto is a scam, and it
| seems the author is projecting that opinion on individuals in the
| Haskell community, but it sounds like those individuals benefit
| the community more than harm it.
| cies wrote:
| I dont share the concern. I remember that the Haskell project
| took a lot MS money in research grants, and this was discussed as
| "potentially damaging to the project".
|
| Crypto currency is no different for me from other financial
| products: they have the potential to be very dangerous for the
| users of such services. Now often this is because of a lack of
| information (ponzi schemes, sub-prime mortgage packages), but
| with crypto all the rules of the game are opensource :)
| raphlinus wrote:
| I've been concerned about this for Rust too, as a lot of the
| published jobs and high profile projects (including Libra) are in
| the cryptocurrency sector. For example, one of the most promising
| rival GUI toolkits, iced, is being sponsored by Cryptowatch.
| Fortunately, the growth of other sectors is robust enough that if
| all cryptocurrency were to fall into the ocean, Rust would be
| impacted but not massively so.
| Macha wrote:
| There was definitely a minor controversy one year where a well
| known community figure listed "less cryptocurrency" as part of
| their hopes for Rust in one of the "Rust in $year" posts. Sadly
| I can't find the details right now.
| raphlinus wrote:
| I think you're referring to:
| https://llogiq.github.io/2019/11/05/fear.html
|
| ETA, and here's the discussion thread on the original post: h
| ttps://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/dpakxq/rust_2020_more..
| .
| unicornmama wrote:
| I suspect that's because of the crypto boom. New tech is
| adopted by new startups, many (maybe even most) new startups
| are in the crypto space.
| pythonaut_16 wrote:
| Crypto in particular has lots of requirements that would be
| served by Rust and Haskell that might make them more
| appealing; where a traditional web startup that mainly serves
| web traffic can easily choose between Ruby, Python,
| Javascript, Elixir, etc.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Rust's adoption in the cryptocurrency sector is massive indeed.
| Parity Technologies and OpenEthereum is the most well known,
| but both Stellar Development Foundation and Zcash Foundation
| (both are among top 30 cryptocurrencies) are rewriting their
| main node implementation in Rust. I'd say at this point Rust
| has more adoption than both Haskell (Cardano) and OCaml
| (Tezos).
| tromp wrote:
| Grin is perhaps the first cryptocurrency to be written in
| Rust, starting in October 2016. Its constant 1 Grin per
| second emission tries to keep speculators at bay.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| In addition to iced, I need to point out that Debian's Rust
| packaging is effectively funded by Web3 Foundation.
| Cryptocurrency money also funded RustCon Asia (held in
| Beijing).
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| I get why he doesn't like crypto currency stuff. Why is it so
| toxic if haskell is used for it? Is there a suggestion that those
| that participate in coin related projects should be persona non
| grata.
|
| Is there really no discussion about software as a dual use
| technology?
| ojnabieoot wrote:
| The issue the author is worried about is that the crypto
| companies are taking advantage of Haskell's public prestige to
| imply a level of robustness and rigor that doesn't actually
| exist: this incredibly incredibly shady company can't be _that_
| shady since they 're using such fancy technology.
|
| > In this new era the Haskell community itself has simply
| become a tool to buy legitimacy and pump token values. The
| reputation of our community is now used to defraud the public
| and convince non-technical users of the soundness of an utterly
| unsound investment.
|
| So when people realize that 50% of crypto entrepreneurs are
| scammers and the other 50% are deluded, and the bubble pops,
| there is a serious concern that Haskell will be publicly
| understood as a "cryptocurrency" language and will suffer a
| reputational hit.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| This is one of the best "We're not thinking critically about
| cryptocurrency" articles I've read.
|
| What's more surprising is it didn't get flagged to death. Maybe
| because the title isn't attracting attention?
| nine_k wrote:
| I think this is a rather strange way of thinking.
|
| Fortran has been extensively used for nuclear weapons
| development. Let's stay away from Fortran!
|
| C was and is widely used in weapons control systems. Let's stop
| using C!
|
| Computers themselves were initially designed for artillery fire
| control, with an explicit intention of killing people. Let's not
| touch the technology with such a foul pedigree.
|
| This can be continued ad nauseam, until the whole of the
| civilization is marked as indecent. Nearly every scientific
| discovery and techology achievement has been used, or attempted
| to be used, for some purpose one might find objectionable.
|
| Instead we could realize that tools are outside morals. A knife
| could be used to cut bread or to cut throats, and it's not the
| knife's decision, but that of its user. The very same thing
| applies to everything, from nuclear fission to functional
| programming.
|
| If you know what's the right, virtuous thing to do in the world,
| do not hesitate, go and do it. Use the most fitting tool for that
| job. Do not mind if that tool is used for whatever other, less
| noble purpose, it's not the tool's fault.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| That is not the core argument though? Nobody uses C in order to
| make their nukes more marketable.
|
| Crypto uses the academic big-brain alpha-nerd reputation of
| Haskell to make their platform appear more reputable. ,,Look,
| written by 100% organic PHD-certified FP programmers, raised on
| our free-range Monad Farm. Oh btw our whitepapers are Very
| Legit and definitely not just decorum for an ICO scam."
| shpongled wrote:
| I consider Stephen to be an extremist when it comes to stuff
| like this. I follow him on twitter, and he frequently tweets
| things like:
|
| "More programmers should have the moral fortitude to stand up
| to the Facebook employees in their communities. This is not a
| socially acceptable career. Facebook employees have chosen to
| turn their skills on poisoning the very communities that gave
| them opportunities to thrive." [0]
|
| "Palantir and Facebook are the largest employers of Rust
| engineers in the world. Rust Community: What exactly is the
| point of all of your long codes of conduct and community
| guidelines if the primary use for your language is the creation
| of a nightmare surveillance state?" [1]
|
| [0]: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1288532583530323970
|
| [1]: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1288106450707873794
| mcguire wrote:
| Well, to be honest, the negative beliefs about Facebook and
| Palantir are pretty common; I suspect rather a lot of people
| here would agree that Facebook is "poisoning the very
| communities that gave them opportunities to thrive" and
| Palantir is creating "a nightmare surveillance state".
|
| If that is the case, it seems like Stephen would be just a
| little less hypocritical than most, trying to convince
| programmers to actually follow through.
|
| A short while back, I mentioned here that Henry Petroski said
| that the origin of engineering ethics is that engineers
| shouldn't compete solely on price. That hasn't been the case
| for a long time, not since some bridge fell down and killed a
| bunch of people. Now, engineering ethics involves saying "no"
| when you boss wants you to do something you feel is
| unethical, illegal, or just plain stupid. Nobody wants to do
| that. It hurts. But some people think it's a part of
| professional behavior.
| shpongled wrote:
| I'm certainly _not_ going to argue against your points
| here, since I agree with them, by and large. I personally
| am not a fan of FB or Palantir, and I suspect I dislike the
| surveillance state more than the average HN reader. My
| comment was more on his word choice (which I find to be a
| bit hyperbolic)
| benedikt wrote:
| twitter isnt the place for reasonable nuanced discussion,
| if you think facebook et al. are bad then you are
| supposed to agree with the hyperbolic black and white
| language.
|
| although this isnt twitter, i sometimes feel like the
| commenters on HN have spent too much time on twitter. i
| cant stand opinionated twitter "personalities" that tweet
| more than they code, and it's been bleeding over to other
| places as well.
| kbenson wrote:
| > "What exactly is the point of all of your long codes of
| conduct and community guidelines if the primary use for your
| language is the creation of a nightmare surveillance state?"
|
| That is a weird point of view, but unfortunately not all that
| uncommon (when applied as a general worldview) right now. I
| think it's worth noting that it's generally anti-open source
| and free software, as it generally boils down to "you should
| control this thing you created as a group" as opposed to "we
| all created this and anyone can use it for anything, but
| maybe we require you to share changes so it's self
| perpetuating".
|
| In my personal opinion, it's the worst type of small
| community social pressure taken to unhealthy extremes brought
| wholesale to the internet age. That is, poorly rationalized,
| aimed people that associate with the target rather than the
| target, and in this case "associate" is so tenuous as include
| the people that made a better hammer because someone used it
| to build something objectionable.
|
| When I find this I find myself wondering if these people even
| really believe this, or they just express this as a strategy
| to influence people? I don't know enough about Dielh to know
| what I think is more likely.
| shpongled wrote:
| > include the people that made a better hammer because
| someone used it to build something objectionable.
|
| This is exactly why I find his argument absurd. Programming
| languages are just tools, there is no moral judgement
| attached to them. You don't get mad at people who
| manufacture other tools that are used for nefarious
| purposes.
| c3534l wrote:
| I find it ironic that he should criticize Plantir and
| Facebook for creating a surveillance state, yet also crypto
| for allowing anonymous monetary transactions.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > Painfully, some of the very founding contributors to Haskell
| itself are the ones deepest involved in this ring
|
| The author's point is the opposite. He's calling out prominent
| members of the Haskell community for running cryptocurrency
| schemes.
| fwip wrote:
| Tools are not inherently morally neutral, and I wish that
| people would stop repeating this lie.
|
| Slot machines are expressly designed to feed on a person's
| gambling addiction and to take their money. Dirty bombs are
| designed to murder thousands or millions of innocent civilians.
| The Nazi gas chambers were designed to slaughter millions of
| innocent civilians.
|
| Using a programming language benefits that programming
| language. This is pretty transparently obvious - a larger
| community means more skilled professionals, more support on
| stack overflow, more funding for development, and more open-
| source contributions.
|
| If you strongly believe that the crypto-currency people are
| doing evil, it makes sense not to aid them. Whether "using
| Haskell" is worth worrying about is something for individuals
| to decide on their own. But it's absurd to say that there is no
| ethical dilemma in incentivizing the development of a tool that
| is used for evil.
| tome wrote:
| Those things don't sound like tools to me. Better examples
| would be hammers, screwdrivers, etc..
| ajuc wrote:
| IBM helped with Holocaust.
|
| It also invented PC.
| nine_k wrote:
| Werner von Braun bombed London with V-2s during WWII and was
| a Nazi party member above the rank-and-file level.
|
| Werner von Braun has lead the US space program to launching
| humans to LEO, and then to the Moon.
|
| Again, technology is morally oblivious. A sword that only
| serves a noble aim is strictly the stuff of fairy tales, and
| is not implementable in the real world (no, not even with an
| AGI, since humans are a reasonably good approximation of an
| AGI).
| mcguire wrote:
| SS-Sturmbannfuhrer. About the same as a Major. Yes, in the
| SS.
|
| I may be the only one who giggles when driving past the
| Werner von Braun Center on Redstone Arsenal. It a very
| attractive, very new part of Army Missile Command.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
| That's not my department", says Wernher Von Braun.
| https://youtu.be/TjDEsGZLbio
| fwip wrote:
| Technology is not inherently morally oblivious.
|
| Some technology has only one purpose, and is used only for
| immoral acts. An example of this would be any device
| invented for torture.
|
| While those examples are uncommon, more technology is built
| expressly for evil acts, even if it has the capacity for
| good. If you are distributing plans and technology to make
| "dirty bombs" - devices intended to disperse lethal amounts
| of radiation - it's impossible for a reasonable person to
| believe that it is not intended to murder people via
| radiation. Furthermore, in the context of today's world,
| you _know_ that the most likely users of such a device
| would be terrorist organizations who will target innocent
| civilians.
|
| An even greater percentage of technology is developed to
| support people doing evil acts. If you provide software or
| hardware to people doing evil acts (in this case, the
| Holocaust), you are giving them material aid. The software
| written to tabulate Jewish residents in Germany was
| developed for the Nazi party. Technical support and sales
| continued well after Nazi Germany had invaded Poland.
|
| The fact that a man (or company) enriched himself by doing
| both bad and good things does not mean that his actions
| were morally neutral. Most people alive have done both bad
| and good things.
| nine_k wrote:
| The same firearm can be user to assault an innocent
| person and to protect an innocent person (in the hands of
| said person or law enforcement / army).
|
| There are certain _devices_ , like napalm bombs, that
| have a narrow and specific purpose of destruction. But
| the _technologies_ used to make the bomb shells or the
| napalm are not specific, and have all kinds of peaceful
| and constructive uses.
|
| Equally, there can be bad, evil-pursuing programs in a
| particular general purpose language, but this does not
| taint that language.
| ahmedtd wrote:
| One of the few takeaways I remember from my engineering
| ethics class is one way to think about the ethical
| implications of a tool: if you have a situation, and you
| introduce a tool, how do the possible outcomes of the
| situation change?
|
| For example, if you have two people arguing without
| weapons, the likely outcomes of the situation aren't
| strongly weighted towards one or both of the participants
| being maimed or killed --- it's difficult and requires
| commitment to really cause horrific damage if you're just
| hitting each other.
|
| If you introduce a (supposedly value-neutral) tool, like
| a gun, into the situation, the outcomes become much more
| strongly weighted towards someone being maimed or killed.
|
| Even though it's always a human using the tool, the tool
| itself can be seen as having an ethical character.
| fwip wrote:
| I like that lens of analysis, thank you for sharing.
| kabdib wrote:
| > It also invented PC.
|
| No. Personal computers were around for quite a while before
| IBM decided to enter the market (with a not very good and
| very expensive machine, I should add).
|
| The PC mantle probably goes to Processor Technology, or maybe
| someone a little earlier. I'm counting 8-bit chipsets, the
| date gets pushed back a LOT farther if you're talking PDP-8s
| or earlier systems (much less commonly available to the
| public). Or you could take it forward to 1977/78 and give the
| title to Apple.
|
| But it's definitely not IBM.
| lsllc wrote:
| I would go as far as to say IBM was "complicit":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust#Summary
| frank2 wrote:
| If you're trying to say that IBM invented the home computer
| or the personal computer, you are off by about 6 years. (Home
| computers became available around 1975; home computers that
| didn't not need any assembly by the buyer became available in
| 1976 or 1977; the IBM PC became available in 1981.)
|
| If you're trying to say that IBM was the first to officially
| name a personal computer "PC", I'll give you that one.
| nine_k wrote:
| It did create a personal computer which was (1) easy to
| clone and (2) easy to extend with ISA cards. This openness
| made it a huge success, leading to an explosion of PC-
| compatible machines.
|
| Most other makers, from Apple to Amiga, vigorously
| protected their small private markets where they dominated.
| The original Macintosh has explicitly _removed_ all the
| expansion capabilities that e.g. Apple II had.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| S-100 was open.
| nine_k wrote:
| Yes, and extermely widely used, despite its bitter flaws.
| frank2 wrote:
| It _accidentally_ made it easy to clone by rushing to
| market, making false assumptions and hoping the
| enterprise market would soon lose interest in personal
| computers.
|
| Rushing to market led to the decision to _license_ the OS
| from Bill Gates instead of _buying_ the OS or writing it
| in-house.
|
| An example of a false assumption would be believing that
| holding the copyright on the BIOS would be enough prevent
| clones.
| smadge wrote:
| Where in the article did the author give any advice on using or
| not using Haskell? The article was criticizing the Haskell
| _community_ , of which the author is a member, not Haskell as a
| tool.
| umvi wrote:
| Doesn't stop people from trying to have the cake and eat it
| too. I think I remember reading about a FOSS project on GitHub
| that put a clause in the license that said something along the
| lines of "this software is free to use except for purposes we
| deem immoral in which case you can't use it" (sorry, I can't
| remember which project it was)
| nonbirithm wrote:
| Was it Learna?
|
| https://github.com/lerna/lerna/pull/1616
|
| https://github.com/jamiebuilds/license
|
| Its proposed license was an extension to MIT which made using
| it theft for a select list of companies that supported ICE.
| nine_k wrote:
| Yes, there's a _nice funny joke_ of this nature in the JSON
| license: "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."
| [1]
|
| I remember IBM had to obtain a separate license without this
| clause, to insure themselves against potential nice funny
| lawsuits claiming the breach of that clause.
|
| [1]: http://www.json.org/license.html
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > C was and is widely used in weapons control systems. Let's
| stop using C!
|
| Let's definitely stop using C in weapons control systems.
| WJW wrote:
| I think it's mostly Ada anyway.
| ivalm wrote:
| It's fine, after killbots kill enough people to fill up their
| fixed-sized arrays they segfault.
| burkaman wrote:
| I realize the article is very vaguely written, but I don't
| think the argument is "Haskell has been used for cryptocurrency
| and that taints it forever."
|
| I read it as "A significant portion of jobs and funding in the
| Haskell ecosystem come from cryptocurrency organizations,
| giving them a lot of influence over the future of the language
| and the community." It's about who controls development of the
| tool _right now_ , not how the tool might be used, or who has
| been involved in the past.
| cinntaile wrote:
| I have re-read the blog post and I can't find what you
| mention.
|
| The blog post is basically telling us that cryptocurrencies
| and its leaders are a giant scam and they don't contribute
| anything of value to society.
|
| Your interpretation is very generous if you ask me. A blog
| post with that angle would be interesting to read though. It
| would have more to do with the Haskell ecosystem than this
| one and it would be good to have that discussion if the
| cryptocurrency influence on the ecosystem is too big.
| burkaman wrote:
| Well yes, if the author didn't think cryptocurrencies were
| a problem, then he probably wouldn't be bothered by crypto
| currencies influencing the community. There are always
| going to be large organizations influencing Haskell, like
| the UK government and Microsoft in the past. I'm guessing
| this blog post is aimed at people who work with Haskell and
| know about the crypto companies in the community, but see
| them like any other organization that funds open source
| development.
|
| I agree it would be great to have more details about how
| big this influence is and how it manifests itself.
| archgoon wrote:
| > they don't contribute anything of value to society.
|
| They appear to be funding Haskell development.
| asddubs wrote:
| is that worth however many percent of the worlds energy
| usage?
| exdsq wrote:
| There's no PoW Haskell chains I'm aware of, they're POS
| chains which are far more energy efficient- therefore
| they reduce energy usage as people move over to them.
| elbear wrote:
| It's hard to tell. Haskell could make a big impact on the
| technology of the future. Or not.
| dtseng123 wrote:
| You are correct.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Does anyone have any notion of what language decisions might
| be affected, especially for the worse, by factoring
| cryptocurrency considerations into it?
| burkaman wrote:
| I don't think the concern is that the language is going to
| get worse, but that funding will be concentrated on the few
| niches that benefit crypto applications, and that people
| might start saying "I don't really want to work with these
| people, I'm gonna go do something else."
|
| Recently a casino was built near me, and they repaved a lot
| of roads and added bike lanes and stuff as part of the
| construction. The roads are objectively better now, but I
| don't want to live next to a casino no matter how good the
| roads are, and I would have preferred if the city
| government had funded that work instead, since I trust them
| more and I have some say in how they spend their money. If
| you were looking for a neighborhood to move into, the first
| thing you noticed wouldn't be the smooth bike lanes, it
| would be the huge casino you can see from anywhere in a 3
| mile radius.
| nine_k wrote:
| Can mathematics be _developed_ for nefarious purposes?
|
| What kind of taint the current influence of the crypto-
| currency industry could leave on the _technical side_ of the
| language?
|
| If these guys are toxic within the development community,
| then, well, we have to somehow handle it -- but again, we've
| seen highly prolific _and_ highly toxic OSS contributors who
| wielded very different, "more noble" values, in the past.
| The problem may be the attitude, not the industry
| affiliation.
| mcguire wrote:
| If you want to use Fortran today, the jobs are essentially
| all government contracting. If you want to use Haskell
| today, the jobs are essentially all cryptocurrency. If you
| don't want to get into government contracting (which is
| hard to get out of), or if you don't want to do
| cryptocurrency, you don't get to use Fortran or Haskell.
|
| What happens if the bottom falls out of the cryptocurrency
| job market? Does Haskell become Scheme, a language used
| only for language research?
| tome wrote:
| > If you want to use Haskell today, the jobs are
| essentially all cryptocurrency
|
| This is not true, by the way.
| leephillips wrote:
| Fortran is used all over for high performance computing,
| not just in government contracting. Scheme is not only
| used for language research. A large part of Julia, a
| pragmatic language for technical computing, is written in
| Scheme.
| eigenspace wrote:
| > A large part of Julia, a pragmatic language for
| technical computing, is written in Scheme.
|
| No, not really. The parser is written in FemtoLisp (a
| Scheme dialect), but that's it. It's not actually doing
| anything other than the parsing, and there's actually
| work being done to replace that with a pure julia parser.
| leephillips wrote:
| In the first paper1 describing the language design, by
| its creators, they state that:
|
| "Our implementation of Julia consists of 11000 lines of
| C, 4000 lines of C++, and 3500 lines of Scheme".
|
| [1] https://julialang.org/blog/2012/08/design-and-
| implementation...
| pizza wrote:
| I assume by tooling the GP doesn't mean something like a
| monadic http library but something more like an app, like
| an offshore account balance checker
| burkaman wrote:
| The analogy I would make is that there are many
| mathematicians and computer scientists who are unwilling to
| work for the CIA, but would be thrilled if a university
| gave them a lot of funding to research the exact same
| stuff. The math itself is not nefarious, but the community
| is.
|
| If Haskell became known as "the crypto people's language",
| many talented computer scientists and engineers would be
| unwilling to join the community or invest anything in the
| language. Partly out of a sense of "I don't want to
| directly help them", and partly just "I don't know those
| people and I don't really want to go to their conferences,
| and all my friends in academia are working on <new language
| x>, what's that all about".
|
| For someone like Stephen Diehl who is deeply embedded in
| the Haskell community and has invested a lot in it, that
| would be a personal and professional loss. You're right
| that the language itself and its technical features would
| not be nefarious, and would be replicated in 100 other
| languages.
| mnsc wrote:
| Interesting that you brought up mathematics. My shallow
| view of the haskell community is that they think haskell
| is/should be as theoretically solid as mathematics. And
| based on this, my interpretation of the underlying fear in
| the article is analogous to the Russian government somehow
| duping all the world's mathematicians to only work on the
| problem domain of breaking cryptos (and incidentally
| primarily the type of cryptos used by "enemy" nations) and
| all the mathematicians dropping everything and going "yeah,
| that sound super cool let's do that, maybe someone else
| will pick up my work in combinatorial topography"
| tome wrote:
| Why the Russian government specifically? Plenty of
| nations do encourage this of (some of) their
| mathematicians and this practice is also poorly regarded
| by some.
| mnsc wrote:
| Just an convenient example of an actor with power to
| influence that easily could be seen to have an non-
| mathematical ulterior motive.
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| US fares better on this point, AFAICS.
| avindroth wrote:
| I think it is too much a reductionist thinking to think
| it's the users, not the tools. Math and programming
| languages (and media like tv or videogames) can easily
| stand on the sidelines, outside of the range of criticism,
| by making the claim that it is not the medium, but the
| users.
|
| But I would argue that knowledge about something is not
| necessarily within that thing, but around that thing as
| well. A handle is a handle because we have hands that can
| grasp the handle. No system in this world is closed
| (perhaps the universe itself but still doubtful), so any
| knowledge pertaining to a system (or a tool) must be
| dependent on its context. A handle acquires meaning because
| of humans. Same with mathematics, programming, or
| otherwise.
|
| So I would argue that yes, mathematics can be developed for
| nefarious purposes. Anything can be. Just because something
| is more pure and seemingly neutral than others does not
| mean that thing will stay independent of its context. The
| outlier example is the statistical farcity and bias in
| scientific experiments. Take it a step further in the
| direction of objectivity, and you could also notice that
| bias plays a role in mathematical experiments.
|
| Another interesting question might be: is uranium evil? Or
| are videogames evil? Are these seemingly neutral things,
| containers of things, evil? Or are common manifestations of
| them, or the way that the medium encourages its content
| (and the way that Haskell and its ecosystem encourage their
| application) relevant to the judgment of that particular
| "container"?
|
| I believe a lot of this has to do with seemingly emotion-
| less quality of abstractions (i.e. containers). In the
| abstractions-land, the mathematics land, the "pure" land,
| only the relevant essence of the thing at hand is
| extracted, thus the compression seemingly occurs
| losslessly. However, in the compression from the real to
| the abstract, we have also lost the sensual, the tactile,
| the emotional. We go from a soul to a 4.5 million deaths.
| We go from the wet texture of water to H2O. By compressing,
| we gain, but also we lose.
|
| A bit sidetracked, but I think any medium can appreciate
| being examined in such a way.
| msla wrote:
| > Or are videogames evil?
|
| I'll answer that when you give me a definition of the
| term.
|
| Might want to start with defining "game" and then pare it
| down.
|
| My point is, you can't say something is evil until you
| have a coherent definition of what that thing _is_.
| hevelvarik wrote:
| Wut
| [deleted]
| Thomashuet wrote:
| I think you're misunderstanding the author here. He doesn't
| argue that people shouldn't use Haskell because it's used in
| crypto currencies, quite the opposite he seems to love Haskell
| and want people to use it. His worry is that being associated
| with crooks will make the Haskell community less attractive.
| akimball wrote:
| Being associated with broad-brush slander is also a negative.
| The attack on cryptocurrency broadly was extremely
| unbalanced, and not even factually correct on some pivotal
| points. I concede that it a sector rife with opportunism,
| scammers, and obvious criminal fraud. The core premise that
| the creation of an economy and system of trade, the
| codification of contract law in code, is without fundamental
| value or productive effect is, however, risible, and tightly
| coupling cryptocurrency with right-wing nuttery is a smear.
| nine_k wrote:
| My point is exactly that: a technology itself can't be
| tainted by crooks using it.
|
| Have innumerable script kiddies, scammers, doorway site
| creators, etc, used PHP for doing bad things? Did / do they
| constitute a significant part of the user community? Yes.
|
| Has PHP been used to create wonderful and world-changing
| things, like Wikipedia? Does PHP have great, very nicely
| designed tools that help people develop good things faster,
| like Laravel? Has the PHP community done a tremendous work to
| make the language much better, and its stdlib much nicer?
| Yes.
|
| Crooks using your favorite tool _can_ be a nuisance in the
| community, but noble-intentioned people can be jerks, too,
| which has many times been observed. If the _community_ has a
| problem with its being nice, welcoming, constructive place,
| it 's usually not because of people's business and even
| political affiliation.
|
| I'll hazard to link to [1] as a supplementary reading on the
| topic.
|
| [1]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GLMFmFvXGyAcG25ni/i-can-
| tole... (It's a copy; unfortunately the author has taken his
| whole huge blog offline.)
| mcguire wrote:
| " _[1]:https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GLMFmFvXGyAcG25ni/i-
| can-tole.... (It's a copy; unfortunately the author has
| taken his whole huge blog offline.)_ "
|
| Dang it, how come I didn't see this before PG's essay on
| conformists and individualists?
| ansible wrote:
| It is back online, mostly:
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-
| anythin...
| goto11 wrote:
| > My point is exactly that: a technology itself can't be
| tainted by crooks using it.
|
| Reportedly Lisp was hit pretty hard by its association with
| AI hype collapse ("The AI Winter"). Of course this doesn't
| change the merits of a language per se, but it can be a
| blow to the community and investments around it.
| rkangel wrote:
| Quality of a language's community does affect the
| experience of using it. PHP is great example to use though
| - just because people are doing nefarious things doesn't
| make them unpleasant people.
|
| The difference between this and the PHP case is one of
| economics. Economic input gives you influence (usually). If
| people who's approach to life you don't agree with assume
| influence over the direction of a project, that can be a
| source of worry.
|
| I'm not sure I think it would be in this case, I think a
| source of finance is probably going to outweigh it, but I
| see the logic.
| a-nikolaev wrote:
| Scott Alexander himself is a borderline crook, together
| with people like Peter Thiel, tainting people's perception
| of Silicon Valley and computer tech as a whole. So crooks
| do harm technology.
| syrrim wrote:
| >the author has taken his whole huge blog offline
|
| Look again
| mcguire wrote:
| " _Have innumerable script kiddies, scammers, doorway site
| creators, etc, used PHP for doing bad things? Did / do they
| constitute a significant part of the user community? Yes._"
|
| Does PHP have a significant taint to the rest of the
| development community? Yes. Are its "nicely designed tools"
| recognized and used outside the PHP community? Not that
| I've seen.
|
| Wikipedia is a web site I use and sometimes poke at. Am I
| going to go looking at its code? Nope. In fact, there are
| several tools that I decided not to fix bugs in, but also
| not to use myself, when I realized they were PHP.
|
| (Aside: have they ever removed, or even deprecated, any of
| the layers of hideously broken interfaces in the stdlib? Or
| are they still lying there as a trap for the unwary?)
| xg15 wrote:
| Nope. This is a call to the Haskell developer community to stop
| cooperation with crypto projects, not a general call to stop
| using Haskell.
|
| I.e., it's a call to the _knife makers_ to stop making their
| knifes to the specs of mob bosses, not a call to ban knifes.
|
| There are plenty of precedents for this kind of action, e.g.
| pharmaceutical companies refusing to supply chemicals for
| executions. (If were already going all life-and-death with the
| analogies)
| nine_k wrote:
| This sounds quite reasonable! But if all a knife needs is a
| sharp blade, there's little to be done in the way of limiting
| its _specific_ uses.
|
| Also, do cryptocurrency bosses ask the community to shape
| Haskell in the way suitable for them, e.g. in the core
| libraries or extensions? Or do they just produce libraries
| for their own use?
| callamdelaney wrote:
| `Computers themselves were initially designed for artillery
| fire control, with an explicit intention of killing people.`
| any citation for this?
| jhayward wrote:
| "The first fully functioning electronic digital computer to
| be built in the U.S. was ENIAC, constructed at the Moore
| School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania,
| for the Army Ordnance Department, by J. Presper Eckert and
| John Mauchly. Completed in 1945, ENIAC was somewhat similar
| to the earlier Colossus, but considerably larger and more
| flexible (although far from general-purpose). The primary
| function for which ENIAC was designed was the calculation of
| tables used in aiming artillery. ENIAC was not a stored-
| program computer, and setting it up for a new job involved
| reconfiguring the machine by means of plugs and switches. For
| many years, ENIAC was believed to have been the first
| functioning electronic digital computer, Colossus being
| unknown to all but a few."[1]
|
| [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computing-history/
| heinrich5991 wrote:
| > to be built in the U.S.
|
| What about the global situation? Is it the same?
| thereticent wrote:
| The UK had Colossus a bit earlier, which I believe was
| the first fully electronic digital computer.
| exdsq wrote:
| Weird, seeing this is Stephen Diehls company summary:
|
| "Automate financial controls and processes in your corporate
| treasury with inter-company loans, virtual account management,
| powerful APIs and a distributed ledger made for financial
| audibility & compliance."
|
| https://www.adjoint.io/
| p0llard wrote:
| What are you getting at?
|
| There's a pretty big difference between corporate treasury
| software and cryptocurrency scams? Unless you're trying to
| argue that anything related to finance is a scam?
|
| I don't see what point you're trying to make, it seems such an
| irrelevant comment that it makes me question your motive and
| wonder if you're trying to smear Stephen.
| leotaku wrote:
| I think they are trying to imply that, because some crypto
| projects are targeting similar markets, there might be some
| conflict of interest that motivated Diehl to create his post.
|
| To me this reads less like a smear and more just "this could
| be why he dislikes crypto that much".
| p0llard wrote:
| They aren't really targeting similar markets (at least from
| my perspective): pretty much any multinational firm can
| benefit from better corporate treasury management;
| cryptocurrencies are just one application of this
| technology, and Stephen is calling out specifically those
| which are attempting to defraud (or at least benefit from
| the the gross ignorance of) retail investors.
|
| Those seem like entirely different markets to me.
| leotaku wrote:
| In my opinion, a non-insignificant amount of
| cryptocurrencies tout a global low-friction exchange
| system with good APIs as their main feature. I am not
| qualified to say how related the markets are, but it
| seems like there is at least some overlap. (E.g. one of
| the first results I get when googling Adjoint is an
| interview conducted by a crypto company)
|
| I think our disagreement stems from how vague Stephens
| post is. By not naming any names he could be accusing any
| crypto company, including those that might indirectly
| compete with him, of being fraudulent.
|
| My stance would probably change if someone were to point
| out one of the "right-wing conspiracy theory cult"
| Haskell companies that Stephen is alluding to, but as it
| stands this mainly seems like fearmongering to me.
| granitepail wrote:
| Exactly. A cryptocurrency is driven by speculation. A
| treasury system helps manage flows of capital in and out
| of a business. Said company pays to use the proprietary
| system. Sure, they're both backed by a ledger, but
| Adjoint isn't turning profit by encouraging or even
| allowing people to speculate on the future value of their
| platform. They're selling a service.
| exdsq wrote:
| He's working on the same ledger tech but centralised, and
| calling out firms working on blockchains unrelated to scams
| like OneCoin.
|
| Edit: To be clear, I like his blog posts normally and am not
| trying to smear him. I'm just saying it's not a fair
| comparison.
| p0llard wrote:
| > He's working on the same ledger tech but centralised
|
| Cryptographic ledger technology has been around since
| forever (the 70s to be precise): just look at Git, SUNDR,
| etc.
|
| I believe he's specifically calling out firms working on
| _cryptocurrencies_ ; cryptocurrencies are just one
| application of cryptographic distributed ledgers.
| exdsq wrote:
| Sure, but the companies he specifically named are working
| on similar projects that's all.
|
| Edit: In fact I don't know of a single company using
| Haskell in the crypto space I'd define as a 'scam'
| greg7mdp wrote:
| What is bitcoin if not a distributed ledger?
| p0llard wrote:
| Using cryptographic primitives to implement a non-
| productive asset is one thing; using cryptographic
| primitives as some kind of ledger goes back to the 70s,
| heck even Git uses Merkle trees.
| dpc_pw wrote:
| When your language is so tiny and unpopular that a growth of
| couple of small projects in an industry your don't like can
| overshadow the whole existing community...
|
| If you create neutral open source tool like a programming
| language, you have to be OK with people using it to do stuff that
| you don't approve of.
|
| And also, it's OK to have your own opinion about something and
| share it, but in complex matters you have to admit that there's a
| possibility that you're wrong. I think TSLA and a some other
| money losing overhyped companies are a FED-induced bubble,
| terrible investment etc. but so far it works for people who
| invest in them, so maybe I am wrong, and who am I to make
| decisions for other people anyway?
| rimjongun wrote:
| Let me take a crack at this.
|
| " When your language is so tiny and unpopular that a growth of
| couple of small projects in an industry your don't like can
| overshadow the whole existing community"
|
| So you decide to open your argument with an insult to the
| community... Not a great showing.
|
| " If you create neutral open source tool like a programming
| language, you have to be OK with people using it to do stuff
| that you don't approve of."
|
| So I have to be okay with crime and scams? I can't decide to
| call attention to it and recommend that people don't let the
| bad influence guide the direction of the whole language?
|
| " I am wrong, and who am I to make decisions for other people
| anyway?"
|
| Good thing this article didn't try to do that.
| dpc_pw wrote:
| > So you decide to open your argument...
|
| Please don't expect anything too serious from me. :D
|
| > I can't decide to call attention to it and recommend that
| people don't let the bad influence guide the direction of the
| whole language?
|
| I can't see how even Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin teamed up
| and backed by a lot of money, could break ... let's say...
| C++ if they got on the design committee. Are they going to
| make the type system more totalitarian-state friendly? Is
| memory safety features better for building tools of state
| oppression? Are they going to introduce new features and
| libraries that make it more useful as a tool of industrial-
| level genocide?
|
| > " I am wrong, and who am I to make decisions for other
| people anyway?" > Good thing this article didn't try to do
| that.
|
| What did it try to do then?
|
| This whole article can be TL;DR with: Some people found
| Haskell useful to write their software and they support
| Haskell development now and I don't like what that software
| is for, so let's do something about it.
|
| Why?
|
| I think there's a lot of people in Open Source community that
| can't separate technical and free speech (and use) aspects of
| their work from their moral beliefs and keep conflating the
| two, trying to use their beloved OS projects as a tool in yet
| another moral crusade of their choosing.
|
| PS. Come to think of it, maybe Haskell compilers should
| change the license to some custom non-Open-Source license
| that says: "only programs that are technically and morally
| pure can be compiled". ;)
| akyu wrote:
| "Adjoint Treasury is a real-time payments and settlement platform
| for corporate treasury"
|
| Stephen Diehl CTO and Founder at Adjoint
|
| I feel our author may not be entirely impartial here...
| sanxiyn wrote:
| I am not sure what you are trying to imply.
| rsstack wrote:
| I think the implication is "old school financial institutions
| don't like cryptocurrencies because they will make them
| obsolete".
|
| so don't agree with the statement or the implication that
| it's relevant, but I think that's what the person above
| meant.
| akyu wrote:
| This is not what I meant.
| pron wrote:
| I see this problem with formal methods, which are also
| increasingly used in the cryptocurrency world. I compare their
| use there to the claim that a tightrope is safe because it's
| anchored to towers assembled from cards made of the strongest
| titanium alloy.
|
| Having said that, I doubt the impact of Haskell's reputation on
| cryptocurrency users, technical or otherwise. The myth that
| Haskell results in more correct programs might still be alive in
| portions of the Haskell community despite the failure to support
| the claim with any evidence, but few outside that community have
| ever heard of that myth, let alone believe it.
| crb002 wrote:
| Does Haskell have a legible GC free subset that is an alternative
| to Rust? If not, that is the elephant.
| gmfawcett wrote:
| I'm not sure you understand what "elephant in the room" means?
| The fact that Haskell has a GC is not an uncomfortable truth
| that everyone avoids discussing.
| Kednicma wrote:
| It's not just a Haskell problem, but I think that Haskellers
| would rather care about stuff like cryptocurrency, which is
| obviously unctuous graft, rather than fix the other social
| problems in their community, like sexism or overly-strict
| versioning.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| If you have ethical concerns with this, but still love FP, just
| come over to OCaml. You get 80-90% of what you love about
| Haskell, and there is an established industry in many sectors.
| Big players here like Ahrefs, Jane Street, and, of course,
| Messanger and Facebook.
| twic wrote:
| If you have ethical concerns, adopt the language used by an SEO
| consultancy, a hedge fund, and Facebook?
|
| (i know Jane Street isn't actually a hedge fund, but how many
| people here know what a prop shop is?)
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| You're right. Let's all abandon our frivolous jobs, live in a
| communal and sing kumbayah around the 100% eco-friendly heat
| source, congratulate ourselves for abolishing the evils of
| capitalism, and stand in our bread lines.
| gmfawcett wrote:
| Tezos uses Ocaml; doesn't the same argument apply? (I don't
| agree with the argument, personally, and I'm a big fan of
| Ocaml... I just don't see how it deserves an "ethical concern"
| exception here.)
| wmf wrote:
| The question would be what fraction of the OCaml community is
| paid by Tezos. If it's over half you may have a problem.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| And the answer is, no where near half, maybe close to a
| couple percentage points, if that.
| gmfawcett wrote:
| I would agree. :) Is that the case with Haskell? The OP
| only says that "some of the very founding contributors to
| Haskell itself" are deeply involved in this.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| I am ignorant of the primary users of Tezos, but I imagine
| given it's low value relative to other coins, it isn't the
| prime target for black market deals, money launderers, and
| other criminals.
|
| I love Tezos, personally, and think it's one of the more
| technically superior blockchains, and can see it having a
| better chance than other stable coins of having broad
| applicability to more than one or two industries.
| xg15 wrote:
| I find it rather telling that almost none of the crypto advocates
| in this thread make any argument that cryptocurrencies are _not_
| shady. Instead, the counterarguments brought forward are
| essentially:
|
| - "it's not the tool's fault that it's used for shady stuff"
|
| - "so what, other people are scammers, too!"
|
| - "there are so many warnings against cryptocurrencies, it's
| getting boring"
|
| - "yes, crypto has scams, but maybe some of them are _good_
| scams! "
|
| - "the author is biased!"
|
| - "the author should give more details!"
|
| That's not exactly a confidence-inspiring picture of the crypto
| community.
| olodus wrote:
| I don't really understand what you think it is telling of. I am
| perfectly fine with expressing that I agree with the article -
| a lot of the crypto currencies out on the market today are very
| close to or actual scams.
|
| At the same time I very much think that the idea/technology of
| crypto currencies has potential.
|
| I also think that language like Haskell, that prides itself in
| correctness and bug-free code, fits perfectly with developing
| that idea. I would say that is one of the large problems even
| more established cryptos has - they might have a bug.
|
| I neither really see the reason why the Haskell community
| should be scared of having crypto people among them. What is
| the worst thing they could really do with the language? Fill up
| youtube with a lot of haskell+crypto speeches? Add crypto -
| related lib and code to the language? Is that really a bad
| thing?
| Vosporos wrote:
| Very fair assessment of the situation.
| dpc_pw wrote:
| "Crypto community" is not a unified group of people, holding
| hands and singing "kumbaya", you know?
|
| Quite the opposite - fights and accusing almost all competing
| projects of technical and/or moral failures are a bread and
| butter of crypto.
|
| It's safe to say that most people in crypto space admits that
| the space is somewhat shady. How else could it be? Money are
| involved so it attracts people trying to exploit it and brings
| the worst side of many, otherwise decent participants, and
| anyone can create yet another crypto project and there's
| nothing to stop them. And it's always "your word and opinion
| against mine" kind of thing.
|
| BTW. It's funny how many people on HN, have no problem with
| "regular" SV companies often based on: praying on dark
| marketing patterns, human dopamine addiction, data collection,
| overly optimistic return projections and so many other "sins",
| but are quick to discredit "crypto" as a whole, to the point
| where they would ban it from using their favorite programming
| languages. :D
| [deleted]
| centimeter wrote:
| You should have zero confidence in "the crypto community". On
| expectation, anyone who describes themselves in those terms is
| probably a scammer.
|
| _Bitcoin_ is not a scam, and maybe a small number of other
| "cryptocurrencies", but the same can not be said for any of the
| zillion products that try to ride on Bitcoin's coattails.
| everfree wrote:
| To be fair, many of those counterarguments would be seen as
| valid if we were discussing, say, private messengers instead of
| cryptocurrency:
|
| * It's not Signal Messenger's fault that it's used for shady
| stuff.
|
| * There are so many warnings against unbreakable strong
| encryption, it's getting boring.
|
| * Many people are biased against strong encryption
|
| In the end, like private messaging, cryptocurrency is just a
| tool that can be used for good or evil. I don't think that the
| general concept needs to be "defended as not being shady" any
| more than any other technology that enables scams, e.g. phones,
| youtube[1], the internet.
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/23/21335554/steve-wozniak-
| yo...
| 127 wrote:
| It's impossible to build a money system that isn't at some
| level shady, outside making it completely totalitarian. Just
| based on simple definitions and some logic.
| leshow wrote:
| Mentions FP Complete, who worked on cardano I think. So is the
| accusation that cardano is running a shady exchange and stealing
| from people?
|
| I don't follow the crypto space, but it seems like we might
| actually want to know which companies are being accused of being
| shady.
| rstarast wrote:
| The accusation is that the whole crypto space is shady. There
| is no value being created, instead investors are being
| defrauded. And part of the con game is pretending to have very
| intelligent people keep making progress building very
| complicated things. Haskell works great to give that
| impression, though Rust seems to work just fine these days,
| too.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| I don't think Cardano is running a shady exchange, but Cardano
| sure is traded in shady exchanges and people are losing money
| trading Cardano. I don't think that's a controversial
| statement.
| cinntaile wrote:
| People are losing money trading a lot of things, including
| but not limited to stocks, commodities and cryptocurrencies
| such as Cardano. I don't really see the issue with that?
|
| I'm guessing it's the shady exchanges. There are several
| exchanges that have been around for a few years now, do you
| take issue with all of them or are you thinking of a specific
| one?
| dade wrote:
| Rebuttal by Founder of Cardano
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHo_EUyShOg
| hannofcart wrote:
| What is it about Haskell that makes it a hot candidate for use in
| cryptocurrency applications? Can someone here shed some light?
| Read the article but it mostly seems to be a diatribe against
| crypto on philosophical grounds. I wish it were meatier on the
| technical reasons for this alleged relationship between Haskell
| and crypto industry.
| twat wrote:
| Haskell always struck me as a language you'd want to use to
| feel superior to the people who code in JS and python, and
| crypto always struck me as a field you'd want to work in to
| feel superior to the people who work in industries that
| actually generate profits.
|
| Also, another possible reason is that many crypto people tend
| to confuse complexity with ingenuity. While the bitcoin
| whitepaper tries to make a complex topic as simple as possible,
| a great many crypto companies and people purposely use language
| that is needlessly convoluted and verbose.
|
| Perhaps they're doing it on purpose to seem smarter?
| tsss wrote:
| Do you even know what "verbose" means? Haskell is obviously
| the exact opposite of verbose. In fact some more verbosity
| often makes it easier to understand.
| rjknight wrote:
| In context, the "language" GP was referring to was the
| (presumably English) language in crypto currency white
| papers which is "needlessly convoluted and verbose". This
| was being contrasted with the concise language of the
| original Bitcoin white paper. It's not about programming
| languages.
| twat wrote:
| Yea what this guy said ^
| 1tCKV3QfIo wrote:
| Just say you don't want to learn more than the absolute
| minimum when it comes to programming language theory. No one
| will give you shit if you are honest about it.
| pyb wrote:
| This is touched upon in the text :
|
| "the Haskell community itself has simply become a tool to buy
| legitimacy and pump token values."
| twat wrote:
| I was at a hackathon and this big shot legal person from NY
| was telling me about a hot crypto company and them using
| Haskell was like the first thing he told me. In fact, all he
| told me was they raised a bunch of money in an ICO and they
| use Haskell. And then he sat there waiting for me to be
| impressed
| sitkack wrote:
| Middle-out block exchange gets you 2x the fees and 1/4 the
| confirmation latency.
|
| Add in "and every dev gets dual monitors" and it would have
| been 1999.
| analyte123 wrote:
| Every company that has the ability to do this as a
| recruiting tool will do it. We're using Elixir / we're
| using OCaml / we're using Clojure (we're using NLP / we're
| using ML). In every case there will be some "business" guy
| who understands just enough to try to impress some
| potential recruit. If you don't understand the domain and
| their actual usage of the tool or language enough to fall
| for this and not ask further questions, it's kind of a
| problem on your part.
| danpalmer wrote:
| > What is it about Haskell that makes it a hot candidate for
| use in cryptocurrency applications?
|
| The community opinion is that Haskell is good for building
| robust and correctly behaving applications. There's some
| evidence that very strong type systems can help with this.
|
| Financial software is an area where people typically want deep
| correctness guarantees, another good example area being
| cryptography.
|
| Between these I think it's probably a good thing that crypto-
| currency applications and applications like exchanges are being
| built with "safe" technology like Haskell, rather than
| technologies that provide much less safety (many Ethereum hacks
| have boiled down to Solidity contracts being relatively loosely
| typed).
|
| This is however not an opinion on what crypto is doing to the
| Haskell ecosystem. I don't know about that.
| prionassembly wrote:
| Apparently there's "right wing" people in Haskell now. This
| is such a paper thin threat on unspecified persons who must
| know they're being targeted.
|
| Seriously, I don't think the readership of HN is in any
| disagreement about how new cryptocurrencies are "short long
| con" jobs, but the author teases that the influx of this
| money is toxic to the Haskell community because... right wing
| people?
| HelloNurse wrote:
| Are you saying that cryptoscammers are "right wing", or
| that threatening cryptoscammers to get rid of them is
| "right wing"? In what sense dealing with "unsavory
| varieties" can be considered a partisan issue?
| chriswarbo wrote:
| The influx of money is toxic because Haskell's traditional
| reputation (roughly: difficult to learn, but fast, smart &
| correct) is being co-opted to add a veneer of legitimacy to
| crypto scams.
|
| I also wouldn't say the problem is to do with "right wing
| people". Nobody's born with a political affiliation: we
| learn and digest information and experience all through our
| lives, swinging towards and away from different values at
| different times. This can especially depend on our social
| circles, our information-bubbles, what benefits us
| personally, etc.
|
| The crypto-bubble tends to discourage regulation,
| accountability, etc. which makes it attractive to right-
| wing politics, whether as a libertarian free-for-all; or
| money-laundering for the gentry; or whatever. When this
| sector has an outsized influence on a particular community,
| the political gradient will be tilted accordingly, and bias
| people's random walks to the right.
|
| Haskell may be great at solving the technical problems with
| crypto, but that doesn't solve its ethical or philosophical
| problems. Yet, as the old saying goes, "It is difficult to
| get a man to understand something, when his salary depends
| on his not understanding it".
| bodhiandpysics1 wrote:
| There is a certain class of computer programs that can best be
| described as a really big table. Basically, an input taken from
| a finite set, you get an output taken from a finite set. This
| type of program is really easy to write in Haskel because you
| can prove that both the conplete input set and output set are
| covered using the type system. In other words you can prove
| that you deal with every possible case (though you can't prove
| that you deal with every possible case correctly!!!), and that
| there is no ambiguity (one input has multiple correct outputs)
| A good example of such a program is an insurance contract (or a
| derivitive contract in a bank)
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| That's basically a DAG - directed acyclical graph. Data is
| transformed from inputs to outputs with no state or branching
| on the macro level of the transform. Lots of programs have
| parts that map to this very well. The cracks show when
| someone realizes this and thinks it is a silver bullet to
| build an architecture that ONLY does this. Then the parts
| that inevitably do need branching, state, and complex loops
| become a big problem. Combined with resource management
| (which can be thought of as mixing in branching and state)
| and the simplistic approach that seemed like a silver bullet
| turns into a nightmare once the realities of real software
| set in.
| pwm wrote:
| Hm, what's the issue with state and branching?
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| If you build a language that is based around doing
| everything with stateless data transformations but
| doesn't address state and branching, it will eventually
| be a problem, because the reality is that the vast
| majority of non trivial software needs to deal with
| plenty of state and branching, not to mention the state
| and branching that will go in to managing resources.
|
| There are a lot of domain specific tools that are used
| for specific tasks where the main software is taking care
| of architecture, high level decisions and resources.
| Shaders are one example of this. Trying to write non
| trivial software like this is problematic because the
| structure you are using is so disconnected from what the
| software needs to do.
| pwm wrote:
| > If you build a language that is based around doing
| everything with stateless data transformations but
| doesn't address state and branching, it will eventually
| be a problem
|
| I'm assuming you are referring to Haskell? It's a general
| purpose programming language so of course it handles
| state, branching, etc... data Tree a =
| Empty | Leaf a | Node a [Tree a] deriving stock
| (Show, Functor, Foldable, Traversable) label
| :: Tree a -> Tree (a, Int) label t = evalState
| (traverse f t) 0 where f t' = state (\c -> ((t',
| c), c + 1))
|
| The above code labels nodes of a multiway tree using a
| counter. State and branching.
| dtseng123 wrote:
| There's no actual technical reason. People fell into this as
| typesafe = "code must safe & secure". Its also a difficult
| language to understand unless you've trained under it compared
| to others. There's an innate obfuscation as a result.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| It attracts the same kind of intellectuals who like the idea of
| cryptocurrency.
|
| It's like a double-whammy.
| BreakfastB0b wrote:
| There's a deep connection between Types and Logical Proofs
| (Curry Howard Correspondence). Haskell has a rich type system
| that allows you to "prove" (i.e. typecheck) many properties of
| your program. This is valuable when getting right the first
| time is important such as smart contracts. I put prove in
| quotations because all type systems of Turing complete
| languages are unsound, but this doesn't matter too much in
| practice. If you wanted to be really sure, you'd use a total
| language like Idris or Coq.
| bodhiandpysics1 wrote:
| That's not true... all turing complete type systems are
| unsound (where the type metalanguage itself is a turing
| complete language), but you can have a sound type system of a
| turing complete language, and in fact haskel itself has such
| a type system.
| chriswarbo wrote:
| Haskell's type system is unsound. Here's an example, where
| we can prove that 1 + 1 = 1: {-# LANGUAGE
| GADTs, TypeFamilies #-} -- Peano arithmetic:
| these types represent '0' and '1+n' data Zero
| data Succ n -- We can define 1 as '1+0', 2 as
| '1+1', and so on type One = Succ Zero type
| Two = Succ One -- A closed type family is a
| function at the type level. -- This function
| implements addition of the above Peano numbers.
| type family Add x y where Add Zero y = y
| Add (Succ x) y = Succ (Add x y) -- 'Equal a b'
| is a proof that types 'a' and 'b' are the same. --
| It works by forcing the type variable 'x' in 'Refl' to
| unify with both. data Equal a b where
| Refl :: Equal x x -- The type checker will
| accept this proof that 1 + 1 = 2, giving: -- >[1 of
| 1] Compiling Main -- Ok, one module loaded.
| truePositive :: Equal (Add One One) Two
| truePositive = Refl -- The type checker will
| reject this proof that 1 + 1 = 1, giving: -- >[1 of
| 1] Compiling Main -- x.hs:24:16: error: --
| * Couldn't match type 'Zero' with 'Succ Zero' --
| Expected type: Equal (Add One One) One -- Actual
| type: Equal One One -- * In the expression: Refl
| -- In an equation for 'trueNegative': trueNegative = Refl
| -- | -- 24 | trueNegative = Refl --
| | --trueNegative :: Equal (Add One One) One
| --trueNegative = Refl -- However, the type
| checker will accept this (unsound) proof -- that 1
| + 1 = 1, giving: -- >[1 of 1] Compiling Main
| ( x.hs, interpreted ) -- Ok, one module loaded.
| falsePositive :: Equal (Add One One) One
| falsePositive = falsePositive
|
| The unsound proof works because our type 'Equal a b'
| doesn't _only_ contain proofs that a = b (AKA 'Refl'); it
| _also_ contains infinite loops, like 'falsePositive =
| falsePositive' (AKA "bottom"). We can use this to undermine
| any guarantee we try to enforce using Haskell's type
| system. In fact, we can make a generic version, which can
| be used to satisfy any type constraint:
| loop :: forall a. a loop = loop
|
| In theory, any time we actually try to use 'loop' our
| program will freeze; so we might think we're safe from any
| bad consequences; e.g. if we have 'launchTheMissiles ::
| PresidentialApproval -> IO ()' we can trick it with
| 'launchTheMissiles loop', but we're safe since that program
| contains an infinite loop, right?
|
| Wrong! Haskell is lazy, so it won't bother evaluating
| arguments which aren't needed. Even if we try forcing the
| value, we can't be sure that the compiler won't optimise it
| away! In practice this means that we can't rely on the
| _mere existence_ of well-typed values as proof of their
| types; we _can_ be sure that our data dependencies exist
| (i.e. those values which are forced as part of our
| computation, which can 't be optimised away), but we still
| won't know that _beforehand_ (i.e. the program may crash or
| freeze at any point _before_ a particular expression, due
| to the presence of "bottom" somewhere).
| agentultra wrote:
| Is this what people mean when they say, _Haskell 's type
| system is sound?_
|
| We know Haskell's type system includes _bottom_ as an
| inhabitant of every type which enables us to shrug and
| hand-wave away proofs of termination. As long as one
| understands that consequence doesn 't it pass Milner's
| definition?
|
| I'm happy writing proofs in Lean or Agda but having to
| avoid or prove termination would be a pain in the rear
| end for most large programs. And in practice I still
| think of Haskell's type system as sound. I always thought
| of "unsound" as programs with terms that are logically
| inconsistent with respect to the theorems proposed by the
| types, eg: early version of TypeScript or Java. Put
| another way, that you could write a proposition in they
| type system that wasn't satisfied by the program (proof).
| chriswarbo wrote:
| > Is this what people mean when they say, Haskell's type
| system is sound?
|
| It depends on the context, but it's certainly in common
| use (e.g. see
| https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21437015/soundness-
| and-c... although I switched 'positive' and 'negative' in
| my example: e.g. I treat 'true positive' as 'correct
| program was accepted', that link treats 'true positive'
| as 'error message was justified')
|
| > As long as one understands that consequence doesn't it
| pass Milner's definition?
|
| Milner's definition is usually summarised as "well-typed
| programs have well-defined behaviour". Haskell does fit
| this description, although certain optimisations may be
| unsound (e.g. library-supplied rewrite rules).
|
| To me, the key deficiency is that Haskell can't ignore
| 'absurd' branches. For example, let's say we have a
| function like this: foo :: a -> b ->
| LessThan a b -> Foo foo Zero (Succ y)
| _ = bar y foo (Succ x) (Succ (Succ y)) _ = baz x
| y
|
| If 'a' and 'b' represent numbers (with singleton values),
| and 'LessThan a b' describes proofs that a < b (see e.g.
| http://chriswarbo.net/blog/2014-12-04-Nat_like_types.html
| for how to encode such proofs), then these two branches
| form a complete definition of 'foo': the combinations
| 'foo _ Zero _' and 'foo (Succ x) (Succ Zero) _' can't
| occur, if we trust the 'LessThan a b' proof. In Agda,
| Coq, etc. we can either leave out those absurd branches
| (if the compiler can spot their absurdity), or in more
| complicated cases we can satisfy the type checker by
| proving they lead to a contradiction.
|
| In Haskell we can't do this: the type of one argument
| can't rule-out values of another. Hence we must define
| those branches (or else leave the implicit "unmatched
| pattern" error, which is a "bottom"), and we need them to
| return values of type 'Foo' (which may be impossible to
| construct, unless we return "bottom"). This satisfies
| Milner's definition, but also goes too far: we're
| specifying well-defined behaviour for programs which
| _aren 't_ well-typed! In practice, this leads to
| redundant branches like 'Nothing -> error "Shouldn't
| happen"', which (a) introduce potential crashes and (b)
| are _so close_ to being statically avoided!
|
| > having to avoid or prove termination would be a pain in
| the rear end for most large programs
|
| It can be. If we're being lazy, we can just wrap things
| in a 'Delay'/'Partial' type (described a little in the
| above "nat-like types" link, and also at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17472926) or run
| proofs in Coq's Mtac language ( https://plv.mpi-
| sws.org/mtac )
|
| > And in practice I still think of Haskell's type system
| as sound.
|
| Me too. This tends to be called "fast and loose
| reasoning" https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/jeremy.gibbons/publica
| tions/fast+loo...
| xkapastel wrote:
| I think it's the possibility of nontermination that leads
| to unsoundness. You can construct a well-typed program that
| never produces a result, which means the fact that a
| program has a particular type does not mean you've proved a
| particular proposition.
| anaphor wrote:
| There are also a lot of traditional finance companies using
| Haskell[1]. And, historically some of the people who created the
| language itself and have worked on GHC (and other compilers), or
| contributed heavily to the ecosystem have worked for traditional
| banks[2].
|
| I don't mention them to encourage people to attack these people,
| but it comes off as a bit selective to focus on the people using
| your language for cryptocurrency when it's also used heavily by
| traditional fintech companies, as well as defense contractors,
| and even for large retail chains (Target uses it for data
| analysis). Facebook also uses it for their spam detection system.
| Why are all of these uses fine and cryptocurrency is not? And if
| they also aren't fine, then how should we solve this problem?
| Start non-profits/charities that specifically use Haskell, and
| somehow make those the majority of the available jobs that use
| it? That seems pretty infeasible unless you want to solve the
| broader problem of these jobs existing in the first place.
|
| [1]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/6p2x0p/list_of_com...
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennart_Augustsson,
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekmett/,
| https://stackoverflow.com/users/83805/don-stewart
| msla wrote:
| The only solution to what the article is ranting about is to
| grow the ecosystem. Move it beyond all kinds of banking. Move
| it beyond all kinds of finance. Move it beyond all kinds of any
| specific industry or endeavor. Otherwise, we'll continue to
| have people ranting about cars because people drive to and from
| some kinds of jobs the article writers think are bad.
| pushcx wrote:
| The "What is happening?" and "How is it happening?" sections of
| the article spend 900 words differentiating legal financial
| services from cryptocurrency scams.
| yarrel wrote:
| "Legal financial services are bailed out by the state when
| they destroy the economy, cryptocurrencies don't do that"
| doesn't take 900 words.
| knorker wrote:
| Except when they do get bailed out. Eth.
| anaphor wrote:
| I disagree with the idea that traditional legal financial
| services commit less fraud than cryptocurrency scams do. They
| just get away with it easier.
|
| > Normally these frauds are recognized for what they are
| quite quickly and the courts and regulatory bodies can clean
| up the mess and rectify the damages to those who have been
| misled
|
| That just comes off as total BS to me. How many regular
| people were awarded damages after the 2008 meltdown, which
| was due to massive fraud in the mortgage industry?
| still_grokking wrote:
| > regulatory bodies can clean up the mess and rectify the
| damages to those who have been misled
|
| That seems true. The system relevant banks got their
| bailout. Regular people OTOHS are not system relevant. So
| everything's fine. /s
| moomin wrote:
| I mean, you ask a lot of questions, but the first one is
| answered by the article and the others aren't really that
| important given the answer to the first.
| praptak wrote:
| To someone not familiar with Haskell funding, can anybody explain
| the quote below?
|
| _" For a while it has been a public secret the Haskell ecosystem
| has become increasingly entangled with an unsavoury variety in
| the cryptocurrency sector as one of primary mechanisms for
| funding development."_
|
| I mean, what exactly is this "unsavoury variety in the
| cryptocurrency sector" and how is Haskell tied to it?
| berdario wrote:
| Also, since it might be unfamiliar to many, here's another
| article that puts forward a criticism of Bitcoin, many of which
| are for ethical issues:
|
| https://blog.habets.se/2017/11/Why-bitcoin-is-terrible.html
|
| It's about bitcoin, and not everything applies to other
| cryptocurrencies, but most of these arguments do apply.
| cinntaile wrote:
| It doesn't really have anything to do with the article
| though. It's just an anti-bitcoin article of which there are
| many. The article here is about cryptocurrencies that pull in
| money through ICOs and that turn out to be fraudulent and
| that use Haskell and sprinkle some right wing politics on
| top. In the end the article doesn't really say anything if
| you ask me and I don't really see the link with Haskell.
| Haskell just has properties well suited for cryptocurrencies
| so it gets used more than certain other programming languages
| for this specific purpose. This seems more like the author
| disagreeing with consultants, who happen to use Haskell, that
| take on (according to him) dubious jobs.
| dtseng123 wrote:
| If you write Haskell and want a job, most of the positions
| available are with crypto related companies.
| praptak wrote:
| This sheds some light on the topic - thanks. Still, the
| author states that Haskell's reputation is used to legitimize
| bad business. It seems to me that shady companies using the
| language internally is not enough to raise alarm about it.
|
| Is there some kind of (un-)official sponsorship from
| (supposedly) shady actors?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Haskell isn't that large of a language. I'm not confident
| if the heavy usage by shady crpyto companies is enough to
| ruin the image of a language but I think at the very least
| the advice to not depend on it financially to grow the
| community is a sound one.
| how_gauche wrote:
| Worked at a Haskell crypto startup. Your analysis of cause
| and effect is wrong -- crypto people are attracted to
| Haskell because it has features that are _excellent_ for
| the domain, not because they are interested in "copping
| shine" from it or whatever.
| praptak wrote:
| To be clear, it's the author's analysis, which I'm trying
| to understand, not mine.
| b4ke wrote:
| Maybe it's about the metaphorical ed whom is neither an
| elephant nor responsible for crypto's thirst....
| agumonkey wrote:
| the morality and potentially negative effects of finance are
| real but if Haskell wants a gold-niche to appear worthy for
| the mainstream world then it's a very potent one.
| declnz wrote:
| I'm not sure where you are - but that's not true in London
| (source: been working here a long time, plus have been hiring
| for Haskell recently)
| twat wrote:
| Most people can read "unsavoury variety in the cryptocurrency
| sector" as everything except bitcoin. A minority of people will
| read it as "all crypto", and if you're reading it as "only
| shitcoins" you're probably a little unsavoury yourself.
| nutellaandgo wrote:
| "However cryptocurrency does not provide any technical answers to
| the inefficiencies since its entire existence is purely
| predicated on the appeal as a speculative investment first and
| not on its efficacy to transmit value."
|
| Pure nonsense.
| [deleted]
| cordite wrote:
| Whoa, FP Complete is doing crypto? It never appeared to me like
| that. Is there a citation?
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Sure they do. It really is a public secret. See
| https://www.fpcomplete.com/blog/fp-complete-and-cardano-bloc...
| andreavaccari wrote:
| No matter your position on this, please take a moment to watch
| the excellent response by Charles Hoskinson.
|
| https://youtu.be/dHo_EUyShOg
| centimeter wrote:
| Lazy and poorly-considered article. It conflates Bitcoiners with
| shitcoin grifters like Cardano. It's also beyond stupid to
| purity-police the uses of a programming language. There's no
| collective tradeoff we have to make here. It doesn't cost me
| anything as a Haskell dev if someone is using it in some scam
| somewhere.
| tome wrote:
| That's interesting. What's wrong with Cardano?
| jriddle567 wrote:
| Printed money is also something based on perception and belief
| that it is worth something
| mlang23 wrote:
| https://hackage.haskell.org/packages/top
| a_humean wrote:
| Pot calling kettle black...
| josemaenzo wrote:
| nocoiner
| the_af wrote:
| I knew Stephen Diehl rang a bell! He is the author of this very
| useful primer on tools & basics of the Haskell dev environment:
| "What I Wish I Knew When Learning
| Haskell"(http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/). I recommend it as a
| practical overview, though of course it doesn't replace actually
| learning Haskell.
| tiew9Vii wrote:
| If you search for Haskel jobs a large number seem to be block
| chain based.
|
| When you look further a lot seem to be around smart contracts.
|
| If you are interested in language design smart contracts are an
| interesting research area, you are basically getting paid well to
| design and research your own language.
|
| What I fail to see is any viable product on the other end.
| There's a few companies I can think off who have been recruiting
| Haskel developers for smart contracts but I can't see a product,
| devs are just taking paid work in a language they like using and
| these companies are sucking up vc funding.
|
| I refuse to speak to recruiters about a blockchain company
| heavily recruiting where I am as I am not smart enough for
| language design/research and more importantly I don't see a
| viable product. I know a few other friends/colleagues refuse to
| speak to the same company due to being blockchain/not seeing a
| product. When I see things like this it also reaffirms my
| thoughts, VC backed companies heavily pushing through blockchain
| but it's not a ready product https://smallcaps.com.au/asx-delays-
| launch-blockchain-settle...
| rmrfrmrf wrote:
| At this point, the entire financial sector is decoupled from
| actual productivity, and to pass moral judgement of one highly
| exploitative industry over another solely due to one's ability to
| be regulated seems myopic, at best.
| tbenst wrote:
| I have great respect for Stephen Diehl and love his writing. But
| I must respectfully disagree. I think it's fantastic that Haskell
| is seeing more paying jobs and corporate sponsored development
| thanks to crypto, and indeed Haskell can _help_ reduce fraud in
| cryptocurrency, like what happened with the Ethereum's DAO.
|
| The comparisons of crypto that he makes to frontier banks are
| interesting but IMHO profoundly misguided. Crypto is not a fad;
| it is here to stay (or at least for some currencies!). He may
| disagree but it's hard to imagine bitcoin disappearing in the
| next decade.
|
| I see the challenge more about what excites the current,
| established Haskell community (linear types! Freer monads!) vs
| the corporate community, who want maintainable and forward
| compatible code. Crypto companies could conceivably resist the
| traditionally fast pace of GHC development. Indeed, a lot of
| money rides on there being no exploitable bugs.
|
| For all my respect of Stephen and his tremendous technical
| expertise, I'm disappointed to see this argument being leveled as
| an armchair economist condemning his peer's work on moral
| grounds. I think a different, equally rational person could look
| at crypto and see a future in it, and I don't think we should
| cast aside people for having different future expectations.
|
| Disclosure: I am an investor in Kadena, a blockchain implemented
| in Haskell
| ordinaryradical wrote:
| > The comparisons of crypto that he makes to frontier banks are
| interesting but IMHO profoundly misguided. Crypto is not a fad;
| it is here to stay
|
| By comparing cryptocurrencies to wildcat banks, he was not
| making a statement about cryptocurrency's longevity but about
| its utility.
|
| Money laundering and child pornography are not fads, and for
| those two reasons alone there will probably always be value in
| non-fiat currencies that preserve the user's anonymity. That
| does not make cryptocurrency something any community or
| individual should want a long-term association with.
| owl57 wrote:
| > Money laundering
|
| You mean the trade-off between global surveillance and easier
| life for some sorts of businesses. Is it immediately obvious
| which of these is more worth supporting?
|
| > and child pornography
|
| Oh yeah, think of the children. Never gets old.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _Disclosure: I am an investor in Kadena, a blockchain
| implemented in Haskell_ "
|
| Dianne has been threatening to get me a "I'm sorry the sound of
| my eyes rolling bothered you" T-shirt.
| tbenst wrote:
| I was a purescript developer and Haskell dabbler way before I
| was an investor, for what it's worth, and happy to engage on
| the substance of my points if you would care to have a
| collegial discourse befitting of academics!
| msla wrote:
| I'm surprised you associate with such problematic people.
| fsckboy wrote:
| so many people are fond of saying "porn launched all these
| different technologies" (I say it that way because I am not fond
| of saying it) that I think this post would better be summed up as
| "crypto is the new porn"
|
| meaning, it more than doesn't matter if a technology finds a
| unsavory butlucrative market, precisely that lucre is what funds
| early stage development of the technology to the point where it
| can grow into commodity markets.
|
| (and this is more "the elephant in the Haskell room" than any
| type of Haskell elephant)
| weego wrote:
| I feel like the only elephant in the room with Haskell is that
| Haskell people are obsessed with jumping in on any other FP
| language and trying to turn it into Haskell. Scala was/is awash
| with it, much to the detriment of the community.
| papmarcin wrote:
| Haskell developer community should support the right projects
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-carbontrading-repo...
| tlholaday wrote:
| > The value of these assets is only determined by what other
| people are willing to pay for them.
|
| According to William Stanley Jevons, Leon Walras, and Carl
| Menger, the value of every asset is only determined by what other
| people are willing to pay for it. It seems a good match for
| cryptocurrencies.
| prionassembly wrote:
| > "what economists call non-productive assets"
|
| That's not a technical term nor a "term of art" in economics.
| Google Scholar returns results from management and accounting
| journals, as well as some pseudo-economics ("heterodox")
| pamphlets.
| ogogmad wrote:
| How do you know what's "pseudo" and not "pseudo" in economics?
| Given that it isn't a science. I'm genuinely curious.
| prionassembly wrote:
| There's something called "economics", much like there is
| something called "psychiatry". [Maybe we need more sociology
| in policy-making. Maybe economics is too narrow a view on the
| world. But it is a specific field of study.]
|
| There are good reasons to be critical of psychiatry, but it's
| a red flag if someone tries to pass palmistry off as
| psychiatry.
|
| The problem here is that economics does have some prestige
| still, which is why predatory political activists try to pass
| their "heterodox" writings as belonging to it.
| derriz wrote:
| Given by whom? Economics is regarded as one of the major
| social sciences.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Economics is a science. You get an idea what's 'pseudo' or
| not by working in or familiarizing yourself with the field.
| Say, The New neoclassical synthesis is very much as standard
| as it gets, whereas Marxist or Austrian economics exist on
| the fringes.
|
| In general something is pseudo-scientific if it operates
| outside of the formalisms or tools of that particular
| discipline, especially if it pretends that it does not.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Economics is not something that can be tested easily on a
| large scale, so most of it becomes about trying to explain
| why things happened in retrospect.
| NateEag wrote:
| Which can be restated as "Economic theories, on average,
| have little predictive power."
|
| I'm glad I took econ classes, but it is not a very
| practical discipline.
|
| And, yes, I think it's a stretch to call it a science
| when you can't do meaningful experiments.
|
| I object to calling geology a science for the same
| reason.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| I would probably agree, but saying something is difficult
| to test is not the same as saying that many theories
| don't seem to be true in practice.
| msla wrote:
| You can say exactly the same thing about archaeology or
| geology or cosmology...
| neilwilson wrote:
| "Modern mainstream economics is sure very rigorous -- but
| if it's rigorously wrong, who cares?
|
| Instead of making formal logical argumentation based on
| deductive-axiomatic models the message, we are better
| served by economists who more than anything else try to
| contribute to solving real problems. "
|
| https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2020/07/28/why-economics-
| is-...
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I'm not sure what that critique has to do with the
| original question about the distinction between science
| and pseudo-science, but I'll respond anyway.
|
| The purpose of science is the generation of knowledge,
| it's to have a formal understanding of a system and
| essentially a language and methodologies to make
| inquiries.
|
| Economics as a science does solve real world problems,
| but it's not the dominant purpose of a science as such.
| It's the task of problem solvers to take scientific
| results and then turn those say, into actionable
| policies. Scientific work does not exist for the purpose
| of solving 'real problems' in the sense of being
| subjected to that goal. Scientists are not engineers.
| When Computer Scientists talk about Big-O complexity they
| often do so in a way that's not really applicable to
| real-world software development, _but that isn 't their
| job_.
|
| That said economic theory actually does very much factor
| sucessfully into decision making. Be that macro-economic
| policy, central banking, the design of markets and
| incentives, and so on.
| tempodox wrote:
| https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/what-are-productive-assets-2...
| c3534l wrote:
| Cryptocurrency enables people to make anonymous monetary
| transactions. Also, so does cash. Drug dealers and criminals
| still very much prefer cash. Is it wrong to work with certain
| traditional finance companies because of their association with
| cash? Should we be worried about users associating your favorite
| language with the seedy world of cash transactions which subvert
| the traditional role and spying capacity of large financial
| institutions? This is the first I've ever heard anyone suggest
| that Haskell is associated with criminality in any way. Its
| associated with academics, and nerds, and maybe even hobby
| programmers. But if I bring up Haskell among a group of people,
| criminal enterprises is not going to be in the 100 top-associated
| things with that language. There is no elephant, the connection
| is strenuous, and if such an elephant existed, it would not be
| worthy of serious consideration.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| Money laundering costs a ton of money crypto is increasing the
| profit margins of human traffickers by like 80%. Not that the
| rest of your argument isn't insane. You can't hand someone a
| million dollars in cash anonymously.
| smcl wrote:
| Hold on. The idea that a means of exchange can be used to
| purchase seedy or illegal goods is not the problem the author
| has with cryptocurrencies. The issue is VERY clearly stated -
| there's a loosely-regulated industry riddled with companies
| that are pushing essentially scam investments. The author is
| concerned that these companies are beginning to fund enough
| Haskell development that it's worth questioning whether they
| want to be associated with such an industry.
|
| I think this is totally valid to question. To brush it off
| entirely as a non-issue, unworthy of even a moment's thought,
| is _extremely_ peculiar.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| > worried about users associating your favorite language with
| the seedy world of cash transactions
|
| when did we start calling cash transactions seedy? you own a
| pub, somebody pays in cash is automatically seedy? let's maybe
| look into offshore banking and US offshore jurisdictions such
| as New Mexico, Delaware and Nevada first (tax havens in our
| midst) before bringing out the guns on the little people who
| have a bad line of credit or are unable to pay by card?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| GP was obviously joking, trying to show that crypto-
| currencies are no different than cash, so anyone who calls
| crypto-currencies 'seedy' would also have to consider cash
| 'seedy'.
|
| However, crypto-currencies are in reality not like cash,
| because fat more than being an anonymous medium of exchange,
| they are in fact mostly an unregulated speculative
| investment, and unregulated speculative investments are, in
| fact, quite seedy.
| throwaway29102 wrote:
| WTAF does this have to do with Haskell? Please consider a retitle
| to "Haskell Developer Does Not Like Cryptocurrency."
| apatheticnpc wrote:
| Idk I think the haskell elephant in the room is the poor beginner
| and intermediate resources,poor tooling,lack of libraries and
| poor documentation but maybe that's just me people totally don't
| want to use haskell because it's involved in some cryptocurrency
| scams
| kerkeslager wrote:
| "Haskell elephant" is such a missed portmanteau opportunity.
| jcbrand wrote:
| I found the description of the cryptocurrency-space as a religion
| well-written and interesting.
|
| Of course, comparisons such as that are relatively common and has
| been made many times for the free software movement as well for
| example.
|
| However, his criticisms of cryptocurrencies are quite off IMO.
|
| > However cryptocurrency companies do not produce anything,
| instead they offer synthetic financial products which are
| marketing to the generic public as investments
|
| MakerDAO is basically a decentralized lending facility (i.e.
| "banks") and Compound is a decentralized money market.
|
| These are actual financial products, they serve real purposes
| that can also be found in the legacy financial system.
|
| Cryptocurrency engineers are building an alternative,
| decentralized financial system that cuts out middle men and
| allows anyone access to financial services (such as accepting
| money from anywhere in the world, or being able to lend out your
| capital) that were previously only available to select people.
|
| In one month, July 2020, the Federal Reserve printed more money
| than the first 200 years of the existence of the USA.
|
| There are serious problems with the legacy financial system, and
| it's good that people are building systems in parallel.
| wmf wrote:
| Out of a thousand cryptocurrencies you found two that are not
| harmful; congratulations. It's virtually impossible for people
| to discover the good stuff without being radicalized by the bad
| stuff.
| tuesdayrain wrote:
| There are thousands of scam penny stocks as well. The number
| of programming languages tainted after being used by them is
| 0.
| fwip wrote:
| MakerDAO created DAI, which is yet-another-stable-coin pegged
| to 1 USD.
|
| If the Federal Reserve can't be trusted with USD, surely DAI
| isn't reliable either.
| leotaku wrote:
| As an outsider to both the Haskell and Crypto communities, I find
| it extremely hard to properly verify any of these claims. For
| example, I was convinced that Tweag was a highly reputable
| company. Would anyone here who is less invested in not burning
| any bridges be willing to name just one "obviously shady" crypto
| project using Haskell?
| duxup wrote:
| So Haskell may have a lot of ties to cryptocurrency and related
| things.
|
| That makes me wonder:
|
| If a language has a large group of what might be seen as unsavory
| groups, people, or just a lot of folks with a specific ideology /
| opinion(s). (let's just assume it is true for argument's sake
| here, I don't know enough / I'm not really saying it is true
| about Haskell)
|
| DOES that change how the language develops?
|
| Does it change, anything?
|
| Have we ever seen that happen before?
|
| Granted even if not I'm not dismissing the article, just
| wondering.
| raphlinus wrote:
| Two things come to mind as relevant to this query.
|
| First, the Red language (a variant of Rebol) tied itself to
| blockchain and created a token, though looking at their
| homepage now this seems less of a central focus.
|
| Second, the Urbit project (which incorporates the Nock and Hoon
| languages, among other things), was founded by a controversial
| neo-reactionary figure. The project seems to be moving forward
| without him, and does not seem to be promoting those
| ideologies, but still carries that association. In addition to
| that, the "business model" for Urbit also seems to be tied to
| cryptocurrency.
| jlehman wrote:
| A significant aspect of Urbit is its use of the Ethereum
| blockchain (called UrbitID), but not to produce any form of
| cryptocurrency--it's used to produce a form of cryptographic
| asset that more closely resembles property, since ownership
| of that asset (called a ship) confers value in the form of an
| identity within a network. DNS is to ICANN as UrbitID is to
| Ethereum. The regulatory aspect of who's who is decentralized
| rather than centralized.
|
| Business models on Urbit don't really have to do with sale of
| ships though--they're finite and not meant for high-frequency
| trading. Business models that are emerging are more likely to
| involve providing services to users of the network, just as
| domain sales are a small fraction of the "business model" for
| the internet.
| scottlocklin wrote:
| It's funny, I remember looking at Quorum's anonymity layer
| Constellation and thinking to myself how odd it was they wrote it
| in Haskell; generally a sign there are no adults in the room when
| coming from a JPMC tier company where actual money will be piped
| through it. It turned out they had to rewrite it in Java to get
| it to function reliably.
|
| I have no opinion on Cardano,but obviously something from the ML
| family is useful if you want to build smart contracts.
| tphyahoo2 wrote:
| https://standardcrypto.wordpress.com/2020/07/30/whiny-progra...
|
| "Well... then don't buy bitcoin Stephen! Nobody is forcing you to
| hodl bitcoin. Unlike all those people in argentina and tin pot
| places where you can't freely convert the currency, and it is
| jail time if you try.
|
| I roll my emoji eyes..."
| tharne wrote:
| I think that fact that Haskell is being used in this way is a
| great thing for the language.
|
| Criminals and criminal enterprises operate in a high pressure,
| high-stakes environment. If criminals are using a tool for
| something it typically means that tool works and works well.
| That's why those pictures you see in the news of terrorists in
| Afghanistan always show a bunch of guys in the back of Toyota
| pickup with a 50 cal mounted on it. Toyota makes a great vehicle
| that does the job. I'm sure Toyota is not thrilled about the
| association, but it speaks to the build quality of their
| vehicles.
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