From: dw@minster.york.ac.uk

From: dw@minster.york.ac.uk
Subject: Re: a note on the Haskerl extension to Haskell
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 93 14:56:02
To: haskell@dcs.gla.ac.uk

David M. Goblirsch (dmgob@mitre.org) writes:

	Can anyone give me an example---or a reference to an example---which
	shows that functional languages are "bad at I/O"?  And why is Haskell
	perceived to be inadequate for "get-the-job-done" tasks?

Yes, Certainly. Here at York we have a small electrical hoist in one of the 
Departmental stairwells which is used for lifting expensive and delicate 
equipment onto the upper floor of the building. As part of an experiment in 
real time functional programming, I wrote a Haskell program to control this 
hoist. It proved to be a tricky exercise: the hoist is controlled by a number 
of registers, and reading and writing these registers in the correct order 
with the correct values proved to be a royal pain. Indeed, the experiment had 
to be stopped after the accidental destruction of a 386-box, 16 wine glasses 
and a large rubber plant during a UFC visit.

Efficient, convenient and reliable IO is one important area that we intend to 
address with Haskerl.

Watch this space for further details.

David Wakeling (Chair, Haskerl WG)

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Dr David Wakeling               | "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to
Department of Computer Science  |  win glorious triumphs, even though checkered
University of York              |  by failure, than to take rank with those
York Y01 5DD                    |  poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor
England                         |  suffer much, because they live in the gray
                                |  twilight that knows not victory or defeat."
dw@minster.york.ac.uk           |  -- Theodore Roosevelt
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