Lots of people are misreading what I said here. I'm not "against" "idealistic languages". I haven't done much Haskell but I suspect that I'd love it; I just haven't had time to take it for a spin. I think it's great that people are trying to improve the state-of-the-art and I think there's lots of improvement to be made still, and I think Haskell is a focal point of that improvement.

I was very specifically disputing the phrase, "I believe that a perfect programming language with perfect tooling...can exist". I am only making the case that "perfect" is not attainable (or even real), even though it can often feel like it might be in the pure world of code. We can keep our eyes upward, and always be making things better, but we will never "arrive". Because of this, qualities like expressiveness and safety - while valuable - always have to be balanced against realities like human nature and project constraints. A feverish compulsion can overtake some of us (or at least me) when we feel like we're very close to true perfection in our work, so it's important to be reminded that you will never quite get there. The desire for refinement has to leave room for other priorities.