[Laaas]

You can apply your argument to almost _any_ language. Haskell's semantics not matching the underlying machine has little to do with any of the issues in the article.

To the contrary, the simplicity of Haskell allows you to understand through simply rewriting expressions according to the rules/definitions you define. You don't have to worry about memory/effects/so many other things that have nothing to do with the _logic_ of what you are trying to do.

Of course, programs in reality often need to be changed to improve performance, but this isn't relevant when teaching.