Quoting Michael Mossey <mpm@alumni.caltech.edu>:

>
> victor wrote:
>> I'm not too convinced by all the talk on pure functional languages.
>> My problem with Haskell is that the syntax is so foreign that it is hard
>> to get going.
>
> I can sympathize... I've just spent the last three days learning
> Haskell and I'm still having trouble doing the simplest things. It's
> quite different than C and Python, but my understanding is that once
> you get going, it is one of the fastest/easiest language to code in.
>

Don't get discouraged, and check out the haskell IRC channel and  
mailing lists, especially haskell-cafe@haskell.org (very high traffic)  
and beginners@haskell.org.  The community is very helpful.  Or you can  
email me directly if you like, although I probably won't be able to  
answer any hard questions.

IMO the biggest difficulty in learning Haskell is that it isn't what  
most programmers expect, and we've been using imperative languages for  
so long that we don't remember what it's like to learn them from first  
principles.  Victor is correct that the syntax is foreign, but the  
semantics is foreign as well.  This means that you need to learn new  
ways of thinking about your code, and that can be hard.  It's not at  
all like learning Python when you know C.  *Incoming bad analogy* It's  
closer to learning how to drive a car when you know how to sail a  
boat, assuming driving instructors were fond of assigning traffic  
engineering journals as reading assignments.

Even things that are deceptively familiar (e.g. types, polymorphism  
and type classes) have some profound differences in Haskell, and it  
takes a while to get used to them.  I would suggest to just keep  
trying to do whatever it is you want to do, and if you get stuck ask  
for help.  Also, ignore monad tutorials for now; many of them are  
rubbish.

Cheers,
John