[Haskell-cafe] In what language...?

[David Virebayre]

2010/10/25 Gregory Collins <greg at gregorycollins.net>

> Andrew Coppin <andrewcoppin at btinternet.com> writes:

> > Hypothesis: The fact that the average Haskeller thinks that this kind of dense
> > cryptic material is "pretty garden-variety" notation possibly explains why
> > normal people think Haskell is scary.

> That's ridiculous.

That's not so ridiculous in the sense that some people might (wrongly)
think they won't understand haskell until they understand at least
some of that cryptic material.
Many long discussion about Haskell on reddit seem to have a beginner
thinking he must "understand monads" before going on.
Yes, the  famous monads which aren't that complicated at all, still
they are part of this dense cryptic material when you're a newbie that
used to think he's smart because he knows c, pascal, basic, php , and
learned postscript's basics in a few days (Then you start looking at
this curiosity called haskell, and you stumple upon haskell-cafe, and
then you are humbled.) (I might be talking about the 3 years ago me,
here :) )

> You're comparing apples to oranges: using Haskell and understanding the
> underlying theory are two completely different
> things.

Agree 100%, but it's not automatic to see it that way for a newcomer.

David.