there's a moment with the language where you go from trying to do things the way you would have done them in another language and instead, your brain adapts, an

there's a moment with the language where you go from trying to do things the way you would have done them in another language and instead, your brain adapts, and you learn to do them the functional way. because it's Haskell, you learn that you can quickly simplify things -- a little glue, a better understanding of the various functions you can pull out from the standard library, etc. -- and something that seemed incredibly complex reduces (like, for a very strong definition of like, algebra) to a few simple terms. many parts of the language come together and make it all click in this way: the syntax, the automatic currying of functions, the purity, and the type system. you start to look at all code differently. you start to see it as a bunch of puzzle pieces that can be fit together just so. and when you go back to try and use something else, you find yourself reflexively reaching for tools that aren't there, or that, removed from their original context, no longer have the support that made them quite so useful or so pleasant in Haskell. you even feel it going to other functional languages -- sticking all these parantheses into this lisp is obscuring the simple details, the puzzle pieces extended with decoration that makes them fit together less well. i don't mean to suggest Haskell is without flaws. but i do think you'll experience the paradigm shift as something concrete. there are almost no languages like it, after all.