Talks to Watch

Gabriella Gonzalez – How to market Haskell to a mainstream programmer

8K views · Aug 13, 2020 · 41:53 · 2 HN recommenders · 5 mentions · discussed 2020–2023

Gabriella Gonzalez argues that developers misunderstand marketing as deception or hype, and applies the technology-adoption ideas of Crossing the Chasm to Haskell. She looks at what keeps Haskell from reaching mainstream programmers and what a community can do about it.

Why Hacker News points people here: Commenters point to it as a clear take on why functional languages stall outside niches, and its lessons are seen as applying to any technology trying to go mainstream.

“although aimed at haskell programmers, is really about any technology looking to grow into the mainstream”HN comment, 2021

What Hacker News said 5

RecommendsplatzAug 2020

“The reason why FP still doesn't really break through in the corporate world is a marketing failure”

Applies Crossing the Chasm to marketing Haskell to mainstream programmers.

Full comment

The reason why FP still doesn't really break through in the corporate world is a marketing failure, in the strictest sense of the word marketing, which means prioritizing the right features to target the right market. A large proportion of this talk is based on the book “Crossing the Chasm". The book was originally written for startups, and this talk adopts the book to an open source audience, especially Haskell developers. Gabriel Gonzalez – How to market Haskell to a mainstream programmer: this video

in “Motivation – Keli Language” · view on HN
RecommendsplatzSep 2020

“this talk adopts that book to programming laguage (or tools more generally)”

Applies Crossing the Chasm to why Haskell hasn't hit the mainstream.

Full comment

The reason why Haskell still doesn't really break through in the corporate world is not a failure of arrogance, but a marketing failure in the strictest sense of the word 'marketing'—which means prioritizing the right features to target the right market. A large proportion of the talk linked below is based on the book “Crossing the Chasm". The book was originally written for startups trying to break into the mainstream, and this talk adopts that book to programming laguage (or tools more generally), particularly regarding Haskell. Gabriel Gonzalez – How to market Haskell to a mainstream programmer: this video Gabriel also suggests that in order to "cross the chasm" you have to offer a best-in-class experience in some area, and suggests that Haskellers adapt the language to facilitating building interpreters, which is it particularly well suited for. So, base on the above, I don't think the OP's emphasis on the emotional analysis of Haskell programmers is anything more than the OP's just-so story, although the notion of parochialism may have some crossover with the concept of marketing.

in “What killed Haskell, could kill Rust, too” · view on HN
RecommendsplatzSep 2021

“although aimed at haskell programmers, is really about any technology looking to grow into the mainstream”

Good talk on growing a technology into the mainstream.

Full comment

this is also a good talk in a similar vein, although aimed at haskell programmers, is really about any technology looking to grow into the mainstream Gabriel Gonzalez – How to market Haskell to a mainstream programmer - this video

in “Functional programming is not popular because it is weird (2016)” · view on HN
RecommendsJoelMcCrackenJun 2022

“here is a talk that goes into this problem.”

Accessible talk on why Haskell lacks a Rails-like killer framework.

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> compelling framework Sadly no. There are contenders for this that have arisen over the years, but we don’t have a RoR for Haskell yet. If you’re curious, here is a talk that goes into this problem. It’s very accessible IMO. this video To be honest, the compelling reason to learn Haskell for me was so I could engage with various academic literature. I just kept running into things I didn’t understand which were tangential to the topic of the paper, and it seemed like the most straightforward way to solve this was to start with learning Haskell. Once I learned it, I realized I was wrong in my biases, and Haskell is a fantastic tool for normal programming, with some important caveats.

in “Why Rust is a great choice for startups” · view on HN
Cites itReleaseCandidatMay 2023

“There is now (well, 2020) a Haskell version of this idea”

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There is now (well, 2020) a Haskell version of this idea (Moore's "Crossing the Chasm") too, as a conference talk: this video

in “Why your F# evangelism isn't working” · view on HN