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Interesting, I have no background in higher level math at all (stopped after high school calculus), yet still am able to grok Either, Maybe, Unit, etc., as I'm

Interesting, I have no background in higher level math at all (stopped after high school calculus), yet still am able to grok Either, Maybe, Unit, etc., as I'm sure is the case with any non-math head that happens to be a programmer. The difficulty I find with Haskell itself (setting aside FP basics that exist in many languages these days), is the math requirement. Why requirement? Well, it may be possible to use Haskell in isolation without knowing category theory and higher level math in general, but in the real world, Haskell libraries are in fact based on and assume a foundation in category theory and general understanding of higher level math (see the uber popular Lens library, Yesod, Conduit, or really any non-trivial library implemented in Haskell). Hand wavy stuff like, "oh, you don't need to know that, it's all just simple building blocks", mixed with, "go read this paper [filled with unicode symbols that have no meaning whatsoever to someone without a background in higher level math]" creates a split message, on the one hand Haskell is simple; on the other, beyond complex. I'd say that F#, OCaml, and Scala are all more accessible than Haskell just due to their placing less of a cognitive burden on the beginner. Learning Haskell feels like reverse engineering my mind. Will be interesting to see how things play out, Haskell is moving fast and is clearly ultra popular here on HN, perhaps startups are already using Haskell in anger (i.e. over Rails, Play et al).

judk 12y ago
There is also the amazing and bewilderig Java Generics FAQ. Lens actually has a great tutorial in its standard documentation. You aren't required to read all the theoretical foundations. Trying to explain the logic under JS truthiness will make your head just as spinny.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> I'd say that F#, OCaml, and Scala are all more accessible than Haskell just due to their placing less of a cognitive burden on the beginner. I think that this is largely a documentation issue rather than a language issue; that is, while certainly its a language issue -- a strength -- that implementing things with a strong basis in (e.g.) category theory is facilitated in Haskell, its a documentation issue that many things implemented in Haskell libraries are not explained in a manner accessible to programmers who don't have that kind of background.

judk 12y ago

There is also the amazing and bewilderig Java Generics FAQ. Lens actually has a great tutorial in its standard documentation. You aren't required to read all the theoretical foundations. Trying to explain the logic under JS truthiness will make your head just as spinny.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> I'd say that F#, OCaml, and Scala are all more accessible than Haskell just due to their placing less of a cognitive burden on the beginner. I think that this is largely a documentation issue rather than a language issue; that is, while certainly its a language issue -- a strength -- that implementing things with a strong basis in (e.g.) category theory is facilitated in Haskell, its a documentation issue that many things implemented in Haskell libraries are not explained in a manner accessible to programmers who don't have that kind of background.