"I still struggle to read most Haskell, and I certainly can’t use it to build anything"....but it's great; and, if you don't know all this cool esoteric stuff,

"I still struggle to read most Haskell, and I certainly can’t use it to build anything"....but it's great; and, if you don't know all this cool esoteric stuff, you're ignorant. Have heard/read similar posts from fans of other fringe languages: Lisp, Scheme, Prolog, ... There are grand claims of superiority, but with little practical evidence to bear out the claims. I agree with other comments here -- the art of software design and programming is _generally_ independent of language. Languages, bad ones, inhibit good software engineering, and good ones enable if not encourage them (which is why good ones are typically minimal).