I understand that clarity is vital, but I kind of hoped that Haskell would grow up to be a combination of a professional language and a communicative and cognitive tool for testing computer-scientific ideas in (much) higher education. It is not necessarily the case that clarity from a well-educated computer scientist's or a professional software developer's point of view is the same as clarity for beginners. It is kind of sad that we are stuck with beginners' languages, such as Java and VB. What works for beginners might not always be the best choice for us highly experienced engineers and scientists. The problem is that if you want to make a language popular in actual use, you have to infiltritate the educative system, since the beginners of today are the professionals behind systems built in two years. This crazy IT world makes doctors out of nurses... The clean and formal touch of Haskell (as well as of Oz and other declarative languages) makes it highly attractive to (1) highly educated professionals and (2) computer-science students (via their teachers.) But beside that "aura," the two groups have different needs. Maybe we have to invent Haskell++, to obfuscate things just enough to keep students out of the way, enable the insertion of features viable for use amongst professionals and in (much) higher education. Or, perhaps, to go the other way, HaskellScript, as a gift to students :-) I hope this mail did not sound too negative (re-reading it, it does...), but I just wonder if anyone else has experienced the conflicting requirements on this (and other) languages? PS Paul, sorry for getting this as a private mail the first time, I hit the "reply" button -- just shows how professional I am ;-) DS /David