While Stack is still young software it is amazing to see how Haskell went from having sub-par build tooling, to something that pretty much trumphs all build tooling I've ever worked with. And all of this happened in about one or two years.

I totally see how this language and it's ecosystem are going to be the next big thing in programming. Ultra highlevel and very compact code that compiles to relatively fast native code. Purely functional and strong type system guarantees to help refactoring the most complex codebases.

It is a hell of a secret weapon for startups.

> It is a hell of a secret weapon for startups.

So secret that hardly any startups use it and hardly anyone has open positions for Haskell jobs...

You have your work cut out for you :-)

JP Morgan [1], Standard Chartered [2], Skedge.me [3], Soostone [4], and Facebook [5] have all advertised open Haskell positions recently. And those are just the ones that come to mind immediately.

[1] https://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2015-June/12...

[2] https://donsbot.wordpress.com/2015/06/10/haskell-dev-role-in...

[3] http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/32ydm7/haskell_jobs...

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9473292

[5] http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2useoq/haskell_oppo...

I didn't say "no one". Any company big enough will have open positions for pretty much any imaginable language or technology out there.

But picking Haskell as a start up is suicidal.

> But picking Haskell as a start up is suicidal.

Can you please list a few of the biggest reasons why?

In addition, aren't you aware there have been quite a few Haskell based startups?

Additionally, do you actually know Haskell and have you used it any substantial project/capacity?

> Can you please list a few of the biggest reasons why?

The main problem is the difficulty to hire Haskell programmers. Recruiting is crucial to a startup's success.

Then there's the entire ecosystem surrounding Haskell, which is still old and antiquated (looking at you Cabal) and moving very slowly (interfacing to NoSQL or AWS, etc...).

Finally, the very high bar to just learn how to correctly program in Haskell puts it out of reach of 99% of the developer community.

The main problem is the difficulty to hire Haskell programmers. Recruiting is crucial to a startup's success.

"We were pleased to get a total of 42 applications, of which 19 merited serious consideration, and we eventually settled on a shortlist of 7 to interview. " [0]

Then there's the entire ecosystem surrounding Haskell, which is still old and antiquated (looking at you Cabal) and moving very slowly (interfacing to NoSQL or AWS, etc...).

> looking at you cabal

See this link for a solution: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9766943

> interfacing to NoSQL

I recently used the Haskell riak[3] binding in my day job for an application. The mongoDB[4] package was uploaded "Tue Jan 19 06:04:06 UTC 2010"[5]

> AWS

There has been an AWS binding since 2011[1][2].

> etc

cassandra[6][7][8]

couchdb[9]

> Finally, the very high bar to just learn how to correctly program in Haskell puts it out of reach of 99% of the developer community.

A 10 year old can do it[9], so I'm sure more than 5% of the developer community can as well!

I wouldn't say I'm a spectacular programmer and I have both learned Haskell and used it in the real world easily enough. I will admit in the past there was a learning issue, but actions to make Haskell easier to learn have (and continue) to happen.[11][12][13][14]

I'm looking forward to any rebuttals you may have to these! :)

0: http://www.well-typed.com/blog/2010/08/on-hiring-haskell-peo...

1: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/aws-0.0.1

2: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/aws

3: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/riak

4: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/mongoDB

5: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/mongoDB-0.1

6: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/cassandra-thrift

7: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/hscassandra

8: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/cassy

9: http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/search?terms=couchdb

10: https://superginbaby.wordpress.com/2015/04/08/teaching-haske...

11: https://github.com/bitemyapp/learnhaskell

12: http://haskellbook.com/

13: http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Haskell-A-Project-Based-Appr...

14: https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell