I have to disagree on two points. First, the implicit point you are making that ambitious algorithms or novel data structures are useful in industry. For the v

I have to disagree on two points. First, the implicit point you are making that ambitious algorithms or novel data structures are useful in industry. For the vast majority of applications this simply isn't the case. Second, the argument that people interested in learning advanced computer science aren't interested in learning new programming languages. This goes against all of my experience; my friends who are most interested in advanced computer science concepts are exactly the ones who spend the most time exploring different programming paradigms as well. I have one idea of what the distinction might be, though: learning different programming paradigms is very different from learning different programming languages. I certainly wouldn't want to waste time learning yet another Java or yet another Python, since as you say that would be focusing on bling rather than substance. If this is the distinction, Haskell comes out fine, as it is clearly a different paradigm from the mainstream languages.