Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Haskell vs MATLAB: What are the differences?
Key Differences Between Haskell and MATLAB
Syntax and Paradigm: The most significant difference between Haskell and MATLAB lies in their syntax and programming paradigm. Haskell is a functional programming language that emphasizes declarative programming, where programs are expressed as mathematical functions and avoid side effects. On the other hand, MATLAB is a procedural programming language that follows an imperative programming paradigm, where programs are composed of a sequence of instructions.
Type System: Another important distinction is the type system of Haskell and MATLAB. Haskell has a strong and statically typed system, which means that all expressions have a type that is checked at compile-time, reducing the likelihood of runtime errors. In contrast, MATLAB has a weak and dynamically typed system, where the type of a variable can change dynamically during runtime, making it more flexible but prone to type-related errors.
Concurrency and Parallelism Support: Haskell surpasses MATLAB in terms of concurrency and parallelism support. Haskell provides native support for parallel programming, making it easier to express and exploit parallelism in programs. Additionally, Haskell offers libraries for concurrent programming, enabling easy creation of concurrent applications. In contrast, MATLAB lacks native support for parallel or concurrent programming, making it more challenging to develop efficient parallel algorithms.
Application Domain: One of the key differences between Haskell and MATLAB lies in their respective application domains. Haskell is commonly used in academic and research environments, where its strong typing, pure functions, and formal verification techniques are highly valued. On the other hand, MATLAB is widely used in engineering and scientific domains, particularly for numerical analysis, data visualization, and prototyping.
Development Environment: Haskell and MATLAB also differ in terms of their development environments. Haskell is typically developed using specialized Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) such as Haskell Platform, which provide advanced tooling and features specific to the Haskell language. In contrast, MATLAB comes with its own integrated development environment, which provides a rich set of tools for data analysis, plotting, and debugging.
Availability of Libraries: The availability of libraries for specific functionalities also differs between Haskell and MATLAB. Haskell has a robust package manager called Cabal, which provides access to a large collection of libraries for various purposes. Although MATLAB has a significant number of built-in functions and toolboxes for scientific computing, its library ecosystem is not as extensive as Haskell's, making it more challenging to find ready-made solutions for specific tasks.
In summary, Haskell and MATLAB differ in terms of their syntax and programming paradigm, type system, concurrency and parallelism support, application domain, development environment, and availability of libraries.
We have a lot of experience in JavaScript, writing our services in NodeJS allows developers to transition to the back end without any friction, without having to learn a new language. There is also the option to write services in TypeScript, which adds an expressive type layer. The semi-shared ecosystem between front and back end is nice as well, though specifically NodeJS libraries sometimes suffer in quality, compared to other major languages.
As for why we didn't pick the other languages, most of it comes down to "personal preference" and historically grown code bases, but let's do some post-hoc deduction:
Go is a practical choice, reasonably easy to learn, but until we find performance issues with our NodeJS stack, there is simply no reason to switch. The benefits of using NodeJS so far outweigh those of picking Go. This might change in the future.
PHP is a language we're still using in big parts of our system, and are still sometimes writing new code in. Modern PHP has fixed some of its issues, and probably has the fastest development cycle time, but it suffers around modelling complex asynchronous tasks, and (on a personal note) lack of support for writing in a functional style.
We don't use Python, Elixir or Ruby, mostly because of personal preference and for historic reasons.
Rust, though I personally love and use it in my projects, would require us to specifically hire for that, as the learning curve is quite steep. Its web ecosystem is OK by now (see https://www.arewewebyet.org/), but in my opinion, it is still no where near that of the other web languages. In other words, we are not willing to pay the price for playing this innovation card.
Haskell, as with Rust, I personally adore, but is simply too esoteric for us. There are problem domains where it shines, ours is not one of them.
Pros of Haskell
- Purely-functional programming90
- Statically typed66
- Type-safe59
- Open source39
- Great community38
- Built-in concurrency31
- Built-in parallelism30
- Composable30
- Referentially transparent24
- Generics20
- Type inference15
- Intellectual satisfaction15
- If it compiles, it's correct12
- Flexible8
- Monads8
- Great type system5
- Proposition testing with QuickCheck4
- One of the most powerful languages *(see blub paradox)*4
- Purely-functional Programming4
- Highly expressive, type-safe, fast development time3
- Pattern matching and completeness checking3
- Great maintainability of the code3
- Fun3
- Reliable3
- Best in class thinking tool2
- Kind system2
- Better type-safe than sorry2
- Type classes2
- Predictable1
- Orthogonality1
Pros of MATLAB
- Simulink20
- Model based software development5
- Functions, statements, plots, directory navigation easy5
- S-Functions3
- REPL2
- Simple variabel control1
- Solve invertible matrix1
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
Cons of Haskell
- Too much distraction in language extensions9
- Error messages can be very confusing8
- Libraries have poor documentation5
- No good ABI3
- No best practices3
- Poor packaging for apps written in it for Linux distros2
- Sometimes performance is unpredictable2
- Slow compilation1
- Monads are hard to understand1
Cons of MATLAB
- Parameter-value pairs syntax to pass arguments clunky2
- Doesn't allow unpacking tuples/arguments lists with *2
- Does not support named function arguments2
