I just had a conversation today that seems relevant to this thread. I was chatting with a friend who is working in the academic sector, and I was observing that Melbourne Uni (my old school), is switching in the new year from teaching Haskell as a first language, to teaching Python. I was dismayed, but not surprised. Anyway, I was talking about this with my friend said that he understood the main reason for the change was that students were not being "switched on" or excited learning Haskell as they used to be learning C. He put it down to the fact that in C, you are more obviously "making the computer do stuff", and that Haskell is sufficiently high level and abstract that beginner programmers don't get that thrill of feeling like you're making the computer work for you. I must say, I get that! but at the same time, of course, the high level abstraction is exactly what *we* love about Haskell. cheers, T. -- Thomas Conway drtomc@gmail.com Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.