[Haskell-cafe] Re: Can somebody give any advice for beginners?

[Gracjan Polak]

clisper <clisper <at> 163.com> writes:

> 
> 
> haskell is greate
> but i don't know how to start.
>  

Don't!

Learning Haskell will change your world! For worse! Really! Don't do that, 
you still have time to go back! Or be damned like all of us here...

Referential transparency will suck up your soul. You'll think about monads 
as your warm and fuzzy friends. You'll wash your hands after doing IO 
because you'll feel that your purity suffered.

You'll consider unit testing a downgraded form of static typing. When your
programs finally compile, they will magically just work. You'll write 
less and less KLOC, doing more at the same time.

Your C#/C++/Java code will look like higher order code after first order
transformation done by hand. Your co-workers and friends will not understand 
what you wrote any more. You'll be like a wizard from another planet for them.

You will know the difference between foldl and foldr.

All your data structures will be infinite in size. Space leaks will bite you
hard. Your functions will be not lazy enough in some arguments and not strict
enough in some others at the same time. And even seq will not help you.

You'll know what MPTCs and GADTs are. You'll actually understand olegs posts.
You'll wonder, what was that OO thing again? You'll take out Java from your CV.

Take a friendly advice: go back and forget that you ever heard about Haskell!

-- 
Gracjan