I'm big into FP, but I've studied Haskell only lightly. Of all the posts I've read about Haskell, this is without doubt the most intimidating.
Clearly, the OP is a quite experienced, skilled programmer, and yet he's been at Haskell for years -- taking books on type theory with him to lunch -- but still struggling with the language at some level.
I believe very strongly that programming in one paradigm can really change the way you think about another (learning Lisp changed the way I program in most languages, for the better). But it really sounds as if the payoff with Haskell just isn't that profound relative to the amount of effort required (unless your real interests lie with abstract algebra or PL research or something like that).
I hope this is not coming across as flamebait. I'm not wondering whether one can profit from studying Haskell; one can presumably profit from studying just about anything in computing. But Haskell really sounds like a very long slog for a relatively small slice of cake.
Clearly, the OP is a quite experienced, skilled programmer, and yet he's been at Haskell for years -- taking books on type theory with him to lunch -- but still struggling with the language at some level.
I believe very strongly that programming in one paradigm can really change the way you think about another (learning Lisp changed the way I program in most languages, for the better). But it really sounds as if the payoff with Haskell just isn't that profound relative to the amount of effort required (unless your real interests lie with abstract algebra or PL research or something like that).
I hope this is not coming across as flamebait. I'm not wondering whether one can profit from studying Haskell; one can presumably profit from studying just about anything in computing. But Haskell really sounds like a very long slog for a relatively small slice of cake.