Haskell is no doubt an interesting language. I have yet to work on a project where it was the obvious choice but I’ve played around with it enough to like it.
What I don’t like are some (not all) of the people who use Haskell and talk about it online. They can be incredibly obnoxious. Haskell is not a tool they work with, it’s their entrance to a class of software engineers that you’re not capable of being part of.
Just for the record: Anyone can learn Haskell. If you’re struggling with it that’s because of a tooling / literature issue. Haskell people (even the nice ones) are bad at explaining the language. The tooling isn’t very friendly and the language is a shit sandwich to debug.
The concepts therein are no more difficult to grasp than any other in programming. Is a Monad a box or a burrito? Please stop. It’s a language feature that allows you to do certain things more concisely than the alternative. Stop pretending it’s magic and show people how to use it and why they should. Stop drawing pictures.
No, algebraic data types are not hard to understand. You just make a big deal out of them because you think the word algebraic sounds cool.
I could keep going but I think I’ve made my point.
Dear Haskell people: Get over yourselves. Do not mistake the larger software community’s disinterest in your pet language for their inability to use it. That’s simply not the case. If people had to use it even ‘lowly js devs’ would master it.
Everyone else: If you haven’t used it already it is a very cool language and worth learning even if just for personal edification. Don’t let the self appointed high priests turn you off. Don’t expect their help either.
What I don’t like are some (not all) of the people who use Haskell and talk about it online. They can be incredibly obnoxious. Haskell is not a tool they work with, it’s their entrance to a class of software engineers that you’re not capable of being part of.
Just for the record: Anyone can learn Haskell. If you’re struggling with it that’s because of a tooling / literature issue. Haskell people (even the nice ones) are bad at explaining the language. The tooling isn’t very friendly and the language is a shit sandwich to debug.
The concepts therein are no more difficult to grasp than any other in programming. Is a Monad a box or a burrito? Please stop. It’s a language feature that allows you to do certain things more concisely than the alternative. Stop pretending it’s magic and show people how to use it and why they should. Stop drawing pictures.
No, algebraic data types are not hard to understand. You just make a big deal out of them because you think the word algebraic sounds cool.
I could keep going but I think I’ve made my point.
Dear Haskell people: Get over yourselves. Do not mistake the larger software community’s disinterest in your pet language for their inability to use it. That’s simply not the case. If people had to use it even ‘lowly js devs’ would master it.
Everyone else: If you haven’t used it already it is a very cool language and worth learning even if just for personal edification. Don’t let the self appointed high priests turn you off. Don’t expect their help either.