Yeah this article was bizarre for me to read. My understanding is that Haskell doesn't aim to be big and popular (as Rust and Go have as a nice counterexample) its intended use is in academia by CS researchers, and its users seem to be quite satisfied with it. The fact that it gets any sort of traction at all outside this suggests that it's actually exceeded expectations of its success.

> It is as if Haskell doesn’t want “normal” people to understand it

Well, yeah kind of. I don't think it's as hostile as that though, the language isn't actively against "normal" people (I guess, that means your common or garden OOP programmer) it just doesn't actively court them.

The comments about how the community treat newcomers are quite interesting though and if they are true then that's pretty shitty behaviour. It's one thing if the language isn't aimed at a given demographic of programmers, but it's another thing for people to use it as an excuse to beat down and berate others.