Arguments of this kind are both wrong and dangerous. Becoming a good Haskell programmer isn't easy, but then neither is becoming a good programmer simpliciter.
The language itself is conceptually novel compared to imperative languages, but the concepts themselves are neither difficult nor abstruse. Actually I find Haskell refreshingly simple; it's a lot like Lisp that way.
I'm sure you'll agree that it's unfortunate that so many people are put off by a subject's alleged difficulty, rather than encouraged by it. However, given that this is in fact the case, wouldn't it be better if we concentrated on saying how enjoyable, intellectually stimulating and useful learning certain things was rather than discouraging people from even having a go?
The language itself is conceptually novel compared to imperative languages, but the concepts themselves are neither difficult nor abstruse. Actually I find Haskell refreshingly simple; it's a lot like Lisp that way.
I'm sure you'll agree that it's unfortunate that so many people are put off by a subject's alleged difficulty, rather than encouraged by it. However, given that this is in fact the case, wouldn't it be better if we concentrated on saying how enjoyable, intellectually stimulating and useful learning certain things was rather than discouraging people from even having a go?