There was quite a long discussion about this on the Haskell subreddit this past week[1], and indeed this topic seems to always be something newcomers get caught

There was quite a long discussion about this on the Haskell subreddit this past week[1], and indeed this topic seems to always be something newcomers get caught up with. My advice is to use the language until you gain an intuition for them. Despite being rather simple, I found it was difficult to fully appreciate them without a decent amount of exposure. Really though, monads aren't what Haskell is all about, and don't let an incomplete understanding of them stop you from diving in. [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2vm0ed/is_there_a_good_succinct_metaphorfree_monad/ http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2vm0ed/is_there_a_g...