[Haskell-cafe] Re: Can somebody give any advice for beginners?

[Jonathan Cast]

On Tue, 2007-09-11 at 16:55 +0000, Gracjan Polak wrote:
> clisper <clisper <at> 163.com> writes:
> 
> > 
> > 
> > haskell is greate
> > but i don't know how to start.
> >  
> 
> Don't!
> 
> Learning Haskell will change your world! For worse! Really! Don't do that, 
> you still have time to go back! Or be damned like all of us here...
> 
> Referential transparency will suck up your soul. You'll think about monads 
> as your warm and fuzzy friends. You'll wash your hands after doing IO 
> because you'll feel that your purity suffered.
> 
> You'll consider unit testing a downgraded form of static typing. When your
> programs finally compile, they will magically just work. You'll write 
> less and less KLOC, doing more at the same time.
> 
> Your C#/C++/Java code will look like higher order code after first order
> transformation done by hand. Your co-workers and friends will not understand 
> what you wrote any more. You'll be like a wizard from another planet for them.
> 
> You will know the difference between foldl and foldr.

And never to use either one.  Long live foldl'!

> All your data structures will be infinite in size. Space leaks will bite you
> hard. Your functions will be not lazy enough in some arguments and not strict
> enough in some others at the same time. And even seq will not help you.
> 
> You'll know what MPTCs and GADTs are. You'll actually understand olegs posts.
> You'll wonder, what was that OO thing again? You'll take out Java from your CV.
> 
> Take a friendly advice: go back and forget that you ever heard about Haskell!

jcc