On Tuesday 20 December 2005 09:45, Simon Peyton-Jones wrote:
| (mild) culture shock here. It is typical for people in the Haskell | community to view things in a rather principled way. A language | tutorial is supposed to introduce /the language/. If you want to | know how to compile or execute a Haskell program, well then, look | at the appropriate tutorial on the /implementation/. At first this | may appear like deliberately creating hurdles, but it isn't, it's | merely the way many (though not all) Haskell people tend to think. | They take it for granted that a new user is at least educated | enough to be aware of the difference between the language itself, | and its concrete implementation in the form of an interpretation or | a compilation system.
I, for one, don't take it for granted! Furthermore, I think the Haskell community is pretty friendly; for example, a great deal of entirely non-condescending advice is given to newcomers on Haskell Café. I'm certain there are hurdles, but I think on the whole they are there by accident rather than design.
After reading again what I wrote above I see that it could be misunderstood. I was not talking about arrogance or any other form of unfriendlyness. I was merely formulating a theory for the reasons some of those hurdles are there in the first place (and occasionally get defended by some). What I meant was that a certain mindset (that I, in principle, share and value) leads to a culture where the primary values somewhat differ from the mainstream, thereby sometimes creating hurdles for newcomers, particularly newcomers without a strong academic background. Cheers Ben