I also found that my initial understanding of the numeric types, based on a traditional imperative programming experience, was not sufficient. However - I now

I also found that my initial understanding of the numeric types, based on a traditional imperative programming experience, was not sufficient. However - I now think that I understand Haskell's way of looking at numeric types and have not had this kind of problem for quite a while. I will certainly agree that Rust's error messages are 1000x better, if you're looking for something similar. After writing this comment I looked at TFA and I'd say read it and maybe even watch the author's talk on "why learning Haskell is hard". In spite of what I expected, the article addresses the ways in which Dhall is a good starting point. (Although readers should be aware that "Dhall is not Turing complete", which for most programmers is a bad thing.)