Dan Piponi on Nostr: In every programming language you find yourself wrestling with aspects of the ...

In every programming language you find yourself wrestling with aspects of the language solving puzzles that are intellectually stimulating. Wrangling the C++ type system is full of puzzles and I think the sense of satisfaction in solving these is one reason why people still enjoy C++ despite it's many flaws.

But Haskell also has many kinds of puzzles like this. But there's one enormous difference between C++ puzzles and Haskell puzzles. The former often seem like arbitrary one off puzzles. When you solve Haskell puzzles it often seems like you haven't solved one single puzzle but something generalizable that occasionally rises to the level of being a "theorem".

So sometimes the C++ puzzles can be fun (in that frustrating way puzzles are), but the Haskell puzzles seem to me of more lasting value.