The Haskell Interlude 68: Michael Snoyman
Aug 12, 2025
In this engaging conversation, Michael Snoyman, the creator of popular Haskell libraries like Yesod and Conduit, shares his journey from Haskell to Rust. He discusses the challenges of lazy IO and introduces Conduit as a better alternative for data handling. The importance of making programming languages like Haskell accessible for newcomers is a key theme. Snoyman also reflects on Haskell's legacy in modern programming, touching on type systems and the evolution of the Haskell ecosystem, including insights on performance in web development.
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Opinionated Defaults Improve Adoption
- Haskell's strengths include STM, but its weakness is too many ways to do things and weak defaults for newcomers.
- More opinionated choices (like Rust or Elm) improve newcomer experience by reducing surface area.
Teach By Letting People Run Code
- Reuse existing web dev patterns and provide an interactive learning surface to onboard users quickly.
- Leverage browser-based tutorials and runnable examples to let learners press a button and see code run.
Start Newcomers With Batteries-Included Frameworks
- Recommend Yesod for newcomers because it includes batteries and sensible defaults to avoid early friction.
- Avoid recommending highly advanced frameworks (like Servant) as first choices to prevent scaring learners off.
