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Comment by edifice | Hacker News Reader

It definitely depends on the algorithm. It also depends on the language. A lot of the difficulty of learning Haskell, for example, is in the type system. A dynamically typed FP lang like Clojure has a shallower learning curve.

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It is true, but it's also unfortunate—I think a lot of Haskell's strengths come from its type system. So what makes Haskell worth learning also makes it hard to learn Haskell :)

Haskell's type system is unfortunate, because for most programmers, 80+% of the benefit comes from how it utterly nails the basics (checking variant type coverage in pattern matching, typeclasses), but the language community is focused on the cutting edge top .003%, because that's where the research papers are.

After working through a few of my own Haskell projects, I eventually found the type system disappointing. A better design would have made it even more sophisticated and harder to learn, IMO. That's the price to pay for being purely functional. Instead, I felt that certain design trade-offs were made, which in effect, make the type system awkward and tend to lead to inflexibility in writing ambitious, comprehensive programs.

Any examples you care to share?

Iit's also unfortunate - I think a lot of Clojure's strengths come from its macro system. So what makes Clojure worth learning also makes it hard to learn Clojure :)

There is stuff to learn in every language :)

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