There are also a lot of traditional finance companies using Haskell[1]. And, historically some of the people who created the language itself and have worked on GHC (and other compilers), or contributed heavily to the ecosystem have worked for traditional banks[2].
I don't mention them to encourage people to attack these people, but it comes off as a bit selective to focus on the people using your language for cryptocurrency when it's also used heavily by traditional fintech companies, as well as defense contractors, and even for large retail chains (Target uses it for data analysis). Facebook also uses it for their spam detection system. Why are all of these uses fine and cryptocurrency is not? And if they also aren't fine, then how should we solve this problem? Start non-profits/charities that specifically use Haskell, and somehow make those the majority of the available jobs that use it? That seems pretty infeasible unless you want to solve the broader problem of these jobs existing in the first place.
The "What is happening?" and "How is it happening?" sections of the article spend 900 words differentiating legal financial services from cryptocurrency scams.
I disagree with the idea that traditional legal financial services commit less fraud than cryptocurrency scams do. They just get away with it easier.
> Normally these frauds are recognized for what they are quite quickly and the courts and regulatory bodies can clean up the mess and rectify the damages to those who have been misled
That just comes off as total BS to me. How many regular people were awarded damages after the 2008 meltdown, which was due to massive fraud in the mortgage industry?
What exactly are you referring to? Can you link an article to explain, as it sounds like you're saying Ethereum was bailed out by the federal government.
I mean, you ask a lot of questions, but the first one is answered by the article and the others aren't really that important given the answer to the first.
The only solution to what the article is ranting about is to grow the ecosystem. Move it beyond all kinds of banking. Move it beyond all kinds of finance. Move it beyond all kinds of any specific industry or endeavor. Otherwise, we'll continue to have people ranting about cars because people drive to and from some kinds of jobs the article writers think are bad.
My rough understanding is that the focus is not on who is using the language, but rather who is funding the language, which of course is a huge distinction.
But banks (particularly Standard Chartered as an example) seem to have also funded a lot of the really early work on Haskell if I'm not mistaken. At least indirectly by hiring people who also work on the core tooling/libraries/etc. Haskell, and functional programming in general has a history of being used and developed heavily in the fintech industry (see Jane Street for OCaml as another example). It's no surprise that cryptocurrency startups would find it attractive and continue that trend. So it really boils down to how ethical you think one group is vs the other, which I think is a ridiculous argument to have. If a specific company or group is doing something unethical/illegal, then name and shame them, but that doesn't seem to be the issue here.
yes, good point, it's been around since the 90s when all of the work done on it was funded by purely academic institutions. I'm 29 years old, and I started using Haskell in about 2009, and I think that's around the time when it started picking up a larger userbase too.
There are also a lot of traditional finance companies using Haskell[1]
This list is misleading. Sure, there are probably a few people at any of these companies dabbling with Haskell. But the only major financial company where it is mainstream is StanChart.
Also, FTA, Isle of Man, not Mann. How seriously can we take a rant about a place that doesn’t even know how to spell it (source: am in Wales, that Isle is just off our coast).
Fun fact: when Scots say “och aye the noo”, noo is the Manx word for “saint”. English people think noo is “news”. It gives a totally different meaning.
It may well be "pretty infeasible" in the short run but having a morally* solid background for technological development is paramount for it's long-term well-being.
Otherwise the foundations will rot while the establishment thrive and the creative driving forces will find new "cleaner" playgrounds within which to express themselves.
*not talking about absolutist "this must have equal outcome for everyone" style morals but rather the harder kind that deals with the long term societal impact of a given thing. And in this context I totally believe the discussion brought up by Stephen Diehl is exceptionally important!
I agree with your premise. I think we should divest from scammy cryptocurrency companies. I also think we should divest from scammy banks, and companies that supply weapons to be used for killing people overseas as well (specifically referring there to companies like Raytheon), and companies that violate our privacy and manipulate our society negatively (i.e. Facebook).
Obviously if you release something with an open source or FOSS license, then anyone is free to use it though. I'm against any kind of morality clause for free software.
> Obviously if you release something with an open source or FOSS license, then anyone is free to use it though. I'm against any kind of morality clause for free software.
Absolutely, it's the organisation /& community that needs to have the moral compass in proper order. In my optics it is about fostering the right sort of positive culture for use of a given tech rather than try to enforce it via totalitarian/legal means - the latter is bound to fail.
They are likely all in-house tools. Take a look at github projects of this Haskell-using bank for example: https://github.com/barclays
Not sure if this counts, but IIRC in one of the talks, Edward Kmett was describing row-polymorphic language they implemented in Scala to be used internally at S&P (or wherever he was working).
I don't mention them to encourage people to attack these people, but it comes off as a bit selective to focus on the people using your language for cryptocurrency when it's also used heavily by traditional fintech companies, as well as defense contractors, and even for large retail chains (Target uses it for data analysis). Facebook also uses it for their spam detection system. Why are all of these uses fine and cryptocurrency is not? And if they also aren't fine, then how should we solve this problem? Start non-profits/charities that specifically use Haskell, and somehow make those the majority of the available jobs that use it? That seems pretty infeasible unless you want to solve the broader problem of these jobs existing in the first place.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/6p2x0p/list_of_com... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennart_Augustsson, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekmett/, https://stackoverflow.com/users/83805/don-stewart