Revisiting Haskell

A while ago I wrote a blog post that summarized my experiences with Haskell, Nix and Purescript. The bottom line is that I wasn’t too happy with the mix of technologies since it added a lot of complexity for very little gain.

Now I’d like to revisit this project and make a few changes, while always striving to one, overarching goal: make it simpler (not easier).

Here’s my todo list:

• separate views from code; I don’t like writing HTML in a DSL implemented in a powerful programming language
• get rid of bootstrap
• remove as much client side Javascript as possible
• remove the ReaderT pattern
• write a QEMU integration (or black box) text

I also want to experiment with keeping a journal that captures the raw and unfiltered experience of revisiting Haskell with these goals in mind. I’ve never done anything like this before and I don’t really know what I’d like to achieve with it. It’s probably equal parts a motivation aid for myself and maybe a helpful resource for other beginner Haskellers who feel like everyone else is a PhD wielding type theory wizard.

The first step will be to setup a little prototype in a separate repository where I can experiment with Heist, the templating engine used in Snap