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> However, I find your tone particularly unpleasant. The sneer in "seem to be people who need worked examples of things to understand them" is repulsive. If thi

by mitchty 10y ago

> However, I find your tone particularly unpleasant. The sneer in "seem to be people who need worked examples of things to understand them" is repulsive. If this is a representative example of your community, it's one no-one should be proud to be a member of. Its always good to apply the principle of good faith. You have no idea who you're talking to, are likely going in biased away from someones arguments, and this will be the first time you've ever conversed. On top of that you're hobbled by text. You also don't know if the writer is a native english speaker or not and might consider the phrase "seem to be people who need worked examples of things to understand them" entirely neutral in tone. Communication is a 2 way street, the tone you perceive may not have been intended. And painting an entire group by one sentence, in one post, that you perhaps disagree with, is a bit of an overreaction in almost any circumstance. The tone you perceive is not one I've personally experienced, quite the opossite. As a beginner in Haskell that is still learning, and learns best by examples, the gp's opinion on documentation drives me nuts. But by and large, most examples aren't all that necessary in haskell with the type system. But when you're learning, I have to say, I hate "the types will document everything" mindset. They tend not to when you're a stranger in a strange land. I wouldn't say documentation itself is a problem in haskell, there is tons. I would say the problem is in quality documentation that at least recognizes audiences of disparate skill level would be at issue. Examples help, but if the examples use something like the state monad that you're not familiar with, it probably won't do you a lick of good to understand how to use it.

caconym_ 10y ago
I taught myself Haskell to an intermediate level a few years ago, and I think you're touching on the truth here. Haskell is hard to learn, or at least it was for me. There is a whole laundry list of concepts I had never even heard of that I had to understand before I could do anything real with the language. Some were apparently dead simple yet frustratingly abstract (e.g. Monoids). Some were intuitive but still took time to grok (e.g. list manipulation stuff). Some twisted my brain into knots and only yielded to persistent study and practice (e.g. monads with threaded state). As I was working through all these "basics", I was constantly frustrated trying to write simple programs. I don't recall whether I blamed it on a lack of beginner-friendly documentation or not, but slowly it all started to resolve into a coherent picture and once I could consistently read and understand real-world types I found that the available documentation was almost always enough for me to quickly understand an interface and how to proceed in using it. I think both sides of this debate are partly right. Haskell's learning curve seems to keep going up as far as you want to climb, and some of the stuff at the intermediate level IMO could really use more examples and documentation, or at least that was my opinion when I was looking at it a year or so ago. One good example might be Template Haskell, which pissed me off to no end every time I tried to use it even in very simple applications. It involves a lot of new syntax and concepts and IIRC had literally no documentation besides what Haddock gives you for free. On the other hand, I think a lot of people criticize Haskell's documentation without knowing the language well enough to make use of said docs or even understand how they might be useful. IMO it's unrealistic to expect every module and library to provide documentation specifically for beginners who don't understand challenging yet ubiquitous concepts (like state monads, to use your example), and I don't think other languages necessarily do a better job at this, but Haskell is just so darn tricky to get your head around that the "total beginner" phase lasts way longer than it might in e.g. Python. For beginners who do want to learn about the core concepts of the language, I found that there was plenty of material to help me on my journey: Real World Haskell, LYAH, the IRC channel, and the internet full of blog posts, to name just a few. I don't mean for this comment to cause offense, or to belittle anyone. I'm certainly not an expert Haskell programmer, and there is much that I still don't understand about it. I just wanted to share some insights I've had learning it and using it in some practical applications.

by mitchty 10y ago

caconym_ 10y ago

I taught myself Haskell to an intermediate level a few years ago, and I think you're touching on the truth here. Haskell is hard to learn, or at least it was for me. There is a whole laundry list of concepts I had never even heard of that I had to understand before I could do anything real with the language. Some were apparently dead simple yet frustratingly abstract (e.g. Monoids). Some were intuitive but still took time to grok (e.g. list manipulation stuff). Some twisted my brain into knots and only yielded to persistent study and practice (e.g. monads with threaded state). As I was working through all these "basics", I was constantly frustrated trying to write simple programs. I don't recall whether I blamed it on a lack of beginner-friendly documentation or not, but slowly it all started to resolve into a coherent picture and once I could consistently read and understand real-world types I found that the available documentation was almost always enough for me to quickly understand an interface and how to proceed in using it. I think both sides of this debate are partly right. Haskell's learning curve seems to keep going up as far as you want to climb, and some of the stuff at the intermediate level IMO could really use more examples and documentation, or at least that was my opinion when I was looking at it a year or so ago. One good example might be Template Haskell, which pissed me off to no end every time I tried to use it even in very simple applications. It involves a lot of new syntax and concepts and IIRC had literally no documentation besides what Haddock gives you for free. On the other hand, I think a lot of people criticize Haskell's documentation without knowing the language well enough to make use of said docs or even understand how they might be useful. IMO it's unrealistic to expect every module and library to provide documentation specifically for beginners who don't understand challenging yet ubiquitous concepts (like state monads, to use your example), and I don't think other languages necessarily do a better job at this, but Haskell is just so darn tricky to get your head around that the "total beginner" phase lasts way longer than it might in e.g. Python. For beginners who do want to learn about the core concepts of the language, I found that there was plenty of material to help me on my journey: Real World Haskell, LYAH, the IRC channel, and the internet full of blog posts, to name just a few. I don't mean for this comment to cause offense, or to belittle anyone. I'm certainly not an expert Haskell programmer, and there is much that I still don't understand about it. I just wanted to share some insights I've had learning it and using it in some practical applications.