> Or alternatively I and every programmer I know are idiots.

Most programmers haven't taken the time to actually learn Haskell.

Haskell only seems hard at first because it incorporates a lot of ideas that other languages do not. For a lot of developers, learning Haskell is a little bit like learning to program from scratch all over again.

In that sense, yes, I guess it's hard, but so was whatever language you learned first.

> For a lot of developers, learning Haskell is a little bit like learning to program from scratch all over again.

I find this to be the greatest joy of learning a new paradigm, everything is new and unknown, so even simple things are fun (again).

> Haskell only seems hard at first because it incorporates a lot of ideas that other languages do not. Indeed, even if you know Haskell, it may take years to master all classes in its standard library and most commonly used modules (like Parsec.)

I have to agree with the GP here. Haskell is actually an exceptionally simple, easy language to work with, once you get the basic concepts down. I have occasionally suffered some confusion in Haskell because of poorly documented third-party libraries, but the language itself is a joy.

I'd add a qualifier that if you know what you're writing and you're writing from scratch, it's relatively easy. Modifying existing programs can present an interesting challenge.

For example once you have a working program and decide that actually some value could be read/written using a file instead of computed at runtime and the place you use it is 10 levels deep after calling a non-IO function, you've got two choices. Unsafe IO (then why not use it everywhere) or a minor program redesign. Haskell is the only language where I run into this kind of situation. (it's still quite simple despite this)

I'd actually argue that modifying existing programs is where Haskell really shines. Strong static types and purity allow you to know a LOT more about arbitrary bits of code than any other language in mainstream use today.

If your program is well factored then it probably won't be hard to switch to IO ten levels deep. Bonus: Haskell makes refactoring easy!

Yes, but what happens to apps which depend on this piece of code? Suddenly the signatures change and you affect everyone with a change which should be completely transparent for them.

It's hard to discuss without an example.

Haskell has a difficult learning curve, that is all. A person coming to Vim from a modeless editor might feel the same way, but nobody doubts that someone familiar with Vim finds it easy to use. It took me a couple of years to "get" Haskell, but once you do it is very easy write clear, concise code with.

!!! I'm sure you're not an idiot.

Have you tried the School of Haskell, it incorporates the minimum viable skills for learning haskell (pulling code apart in the REPL, and understanding type signatures, pattern matches and compiler type check errors)

https://www.fpcomplete.com/school/how-to-use-the-school-of-h...