Slides from my keynote talk at the 2009 Commercial Users of Functional Programming workshop in Edinburgh, Scotland.

1. Real World Haskell.

2. It's 1994.

3. There's just one
song on the radio.
“Love is all around,”
by Wet Wet Wet.

4. And I have a
headache.

5. I'm in
Glasgow.

6. I'm learning to
hack on GHC.

7. I'm learning Go.

8. It's a great
crowd.

9. I make lots of friends.

10. One is named
Jim.

11. So on this particular
day in 1994...
...why else
do I have
a headache?

12. Well, we tend to go out.

13. After a hard night out, Jim goes home.

14. He dreams.

15. Happily, this is no nightmare.
In fact...

16. ...he meets a
beautiful
woman.

17. In his dream,
they hit it off.

18. She even gives him
her number.

19. When he
wakes...

20. ...it's the most.
Amazing.
Thing.

21. He remembers
her number!

22. ...so he writes
it down...

23. ...and brings it in...

24. ...and
asks
me:

25. “What
should
I do
with this
number?”

26. “Wait a sec,”
I tell him.

27. “I know this
number.”

28. “It's the delivery number...

29. ...for the local pizzeria.”

30. Why tell
this
story?

31. Community.

32. Most people
like to
belong.

33. I loved
the Haskell
community...

34. ...but
I left
anyway.

35. Over a decade
passed.

36. When I returned, the
community was still beautiful...

37. ...and serenely inward-facing.

38. How did you learn
Haskell?

39. Here's what I did:
I read dozens of papers.
I studied thousands of
lines of code.

40. I wrote lots of
throwaway
code.

41. But mostly, I Googled...
...and read...

42. ...and Googled...
...and read...

43. ...and, well,
you get the idea.

44. I delighted in the process.
But it wasn't very efficient.

45. So I decided to
write a book.
“Make the job
easier for others,”
I told myself.

46. Oh, and that book?
It's how I did the bulk of
my learning.

47. It took:
1.5 years.

48. It took:
1.5 years.
3 writers.

49. It took:
1.5 years.
3 writers.
710 pages.

50. It took:
1.5 years.
3 writers.
710 pages.
800+ reviewers.

51. It took:
1.5 years.
3 writers.
710 pages.
800+ reviewers.
7,500+ comments.

52. Now it's your turn.
Srsly.

53. What is the Haskell
community good at?

54. Research? We've got it!

55. Outreach?

56. That's less
clear to me.

57. You don't need to
write a 700-page tome.

58. You don't need to
describe new research.
(In fact, I think it's best you don't.)

59. You need:
Tenacity.
An idea.
Tenacity.
Explanatory skill.
Tenacity.

60. I even have
some ideas
for you.
All nice and handy.

61. 1. Writing and Tuning Fast
Haskell Code.

62. 2. Parallel Haskell in 24
Hours.

63. 3. High-Assurance Haskell.

64. 4. Modeling in Haskell.

65. 5. Real World Abstract
Algebra for Categorical
Dummies.

66. 6. Complex Functional
Applications.

67. 7. Grow Your Own
Monads in the Basement,
Legally.

68. 8. Concurrent
Networking Programming.

69. 9. Functional Pearls and
Design Patterns.

70. 10. Secrets of the
QuickCheck Wizards.

71. Who should you be
writing for?

72. NOT THE PEOPLE
IN THIS ROOM.

73. Look to
other programming
communities.

74. If we don't talk
to them, they
won't simply
come to us.

75. Who is this man?
Anthony
Stafford
Beer.

76. Beer was an influential
cybernetician.
Cybernetics: “The science of effective organization.”

77. Cybersyn.
Santiago,
Chile,
1970-1972.

78. Cybersyn:
Centralised control of the
Chilean economy.

79. A star network of telex machines running from
factories to a control centre in Santiago.

80. A Beer coinage:
“POSIWID”

81. POSIWID:
The purpose of a system
is what it does.

82. Don't try to
understand a system
from what
its designers
say it's for.

83. Start from
observing
what it
actually
does.

84. Beer had some...unusual
ideas.

85. But he managed to get
them implemented.

86. So, from the
POSIWID
perspective:
What does functional
programming do?

87. I am not suggesting that we
should try to be like this.

88. But our
rhetoric
suggests that
most of us do
not want to be
like this,
either.

89. Go write a book.
Give a talk.
Write a blog post.

90. Oh, and thanks.