From this description it sounds like Maybe is similar to checked exceptions in ways I didn't even realize when I wrote my comment. The difference is that Haske

From this description it sounds like Maybe is similar to checked exceptions in ways I didn't even realize when I wrote my comment. The difference is that Haskell's syntax is pleasant and concise to work with. It would be really annoying if Java's Map type threw a checked exception when you called get() because try/catch is so verbose and difficult to refactor around. But if it weren't annoying, it would probably make the API better and save me from shooting myself in the foot.