Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Haskell is only used for writing toy programs. I meant that Haskell people gravitate toward problems that are functional in

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Haskell is only used for writing toy programs. I meant that Haskell people gravitate toward problems that are functional in nature. Many such programs are useful, though rarely in isolation. If you're wondering where the idea comes from, here's an example. There is a thread on Facebook titled "What have you made using Haskell?" http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2213713570&topic=2811 http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2213713570&topic=2... Here are the responses: 1. HAppS (a web thingy) 2. A minesweeper clone 3. A preprocessor for POV-Ray source files 4. A program to prove graph isomorphisms 5. A parser for boolean logic sentences 6. A lambda expression evaluator with alpha equivalence testing 7. A hyperbolic raytracer 8. An image regression program 9. A program that finds equidistant letter sequences 10. A boolean expression to truth table converter 11. A resolution theorem prover 12. An interpreter of a Prolog basic subset 13. A Markov Chain generator 14. An anagram generator 15. A library for doing computation inside various algebraic structures 16. A maze generator and solver Some of these are exercises, some are toys, some look potentially useful. But except for the first two, they are all pure-functional problems, and are rather abstract. Maybe this sample isn't representative of all Haskell usage or what Haskell is capable of, but the stereotype, like most stereotypes, exists for a reason.