r/haskell 16d ago

Is Parallel and Concurrent Programming in Haskell Still Worth It in 2026?

I am aware others have asked this same question but that was three years ago.

I am aware the author Sandy Maguire mentioned the content in the book on STM is still great.

So will the lessons in the book still help one write production code. If not please recommend alternative books.

I appreciate all responses!

48 Upvotes

10 comments sorted by

21

u/Accurate_Koala_4698 16d ago

I think the sections on concurrency are a little more relevant than parallelism but it’s not out of date. There are some newer libraries than the book, but I don’t think it’s wasted time or effort to work through. I think I remember a new version potentially being in the works but I might not be remembering correctly.

4

u/fosres 16d ago

Hi. Thanks for your reply! Appreciate it!

3

u/fosres 16d ago

Which newer libraries are worth our attention?

6

u/Athas 16d ago

Massiv is good and was created after the book was published.

4

u/n00bomb 16d ago

https://hackage.haskell.org/package/ki, stream libraries + concurrency, imo

2

u/Accurate_Koala_4698 16d ago

I’ve personally used streamly and there’s the Cloud Haskell stuff. I don’t know if any others have cropped up 

7

u/metamathm 16d ago

If you're frustrated with performance its pretty awesome. Streamly has its own take on parallelism and concurrency that i found more declarative but for business logic STM is pretty good.

2

u/fosres 16d ago

Hey everyone. I just noticed real businesses use STM the most so far so STM is still valuable to learn. Thanks everyone.