> I still can't fathom how to do anything real with it That's incredibly easy, of your list of "problems to attack and programs to write some time soon" pick a

> I still can't fathom how to do anything real with it That's incredibly easy, of your list of "problems to attack and programs to write some time soon" pick any one and get busy. It'll feel real-world very soon and there's no better way to grasp "real-world Haskell". The first iteration will be ugly, but on the plus side you'll notice that yourself and that's quite some progress already. Keep at it a bit more and perceived "decent post-newb proficiency" is within reach. Well-rounded mature libraries for "real-world periphery" (DBs, json/yaml/html/xml/all that jazz) abound, too. What I find much more annoying is the lack of freelance projects. It's literally the language of academics, hobbyists, weekenders, late-nighters, githubbers. (Certainly also suitable for bootstrappers imho in a "Viaweb-Lisp-advantage" kinda way) If you want to avoid full-time employ, you're gonna have to keep doing .net/java/golang/node and such projects. Haskell code-bases I feel are private well-guarded silos within academia and a number of corps, no wider "projects ecosystem" to speak of.