This is a common response to Haskell language extensions. It comes from a misunderstanding of what a language extension is. A Haskell language extension is not "something that radically changes the language"; it is "a small, self-contained, well-tested piece of functionality that for whatever reason wasn't part of the Haskell 2010 standard". In any other language a "language extension" would just be "a feature of the language".