On Tue, 2009-07-14 at 03:01 -0700, Michael Vanier wrote:

...

Haskell is a wonderful language (my favorite language by far) but it is pretty difficult for a beginner. In fact, it is pretty difficult for anyone to learn in my experience, because it has so many advanced concepts that simply don't exist in other languages, and trying to absorb them all at once will likely be overwhelming.

Then Duncan said:

As a contrary data-point, at Oxford we teach functional programming (using Haskell) as the first course at the very beginning of the computer science degree. I know several other universities also use FP and Haskell very early on in their CS courses.

At Imperial College, Haskell's also the first language the undergrads touch and people seem to like it. I think it's easy to forget how reassuring it is to be surrounded by lots of other beginners when one is learning something completely new - like programming. A lot of people here seem to be suggesting that haskell is an advanced language for advanced programmers. I think it more likely that people whose first experience of haskell is online are likely to come into contact with mostly advanced programmers in here and on #haskell. This is great, because they can teach us things - but it can also be off-putting, because they can seem so far beyond us. Imagine trying to learn basic arithmetic in a university common room full of category theorists. Personally, I think that haskell is a great beginners language. Just don't feel that you have to be able to keep up with all the #haskellers. It's absolutely fine to not understand what a monad transformer is. G