[Haskell-cafe] Re: Interesting new user perspective

[Ryan Ingram]

On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 6:02 PM, Mauricio <briqueabraque at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 10:49 PM, Andrew Coppin <andrewcoppin at btinternet.com> wrote:
>> _Some_ newcommers flounder because they expect Haskell to be just another
>> VB / C++ / Java / whatever. (Do we really want to encourage these people to
>> be learning Haskell in the first place?) (...)
>
> I hope so. One of my most important motivations to try
> Haskell was that I thought it was radically drived by
> some ideas that were only beggining to show up in C++,
> and I'm happy to know I was right :)

I would go further than that.  To Andrew's question, I say:

Yes, we want to encourage "these people" to learn Haskell.  We want to
smash all their expectations into tiny little pieces.  We want their
brains to explode.  And after that, we want to take what is left, pick
it up off the floor, and put it back in as something new and better!

People who didn't realize just what it was that they were getting
into, once they come around, tend to be even more vocal supporters
among their peers.  They've finally "gotten it" and want to share that
experience with others.

We just need to communicate that learning Haskell will make you a
better programmer, no matter what expectations you have going in.

  -- ryan