I'm the author of the post. I'll be happy to answer any of your questions :)
> * We use all of the five different string types. It is annoying, but it is not a major problem.
cs[1] and the OverloadedStrings extension is all you need, in my experience.
[1] https://www.stackage.org/haddock/lts-8.3/string-conversions-...
https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/5x3hdd/channab...
Also, a compiler refuses to compile your code if you make a typo in a field name.