[marssaxman]

I have a similar experience, but it applies to Haskell, too. I understand functional programming just fine, but I can't read the source code at all. I can slowly grind my way through a snippet and work out what it means, but I can't read it. I wonder whether this experience has anything to do with one's comfort reading mathematical notation - I basically can't, and skip over all the formulas when I'm reading a paper. It's at least 100x easier to just infer the principle from a working example.

[tikhonj]

Interestingly, I like Haskell for exactly the opposite reason: not only can I read it, but I don't have to. Haskell is the best language I know for getting the gist of some code at a glance.

This is the same advantage as mathematical notation has over paragraphs of text: I can get the general idea from a formula or diagram without reading it in detail. In a sense, I can infer the "shape" of the notation, which is what lets me avoid actually reading everything.

Getting to this point with both mathematical notation and Haskell took a lot of practice, but it's well worth it: both notations have exceptional information density and allow me to go through more information faster.

Sometimes, for some completely foreign ideas, I do have to read the mathematical notation/Haskell code in much closer detail. And this does take much longer than you'd expect: a single page can take something like half an hour or more. But this is not much of a surprise: if the notation was expanded to prose, it would take up several pages, and not be an easy read by prose standards either.

[marssaxman]

It's remarkable how differently adapted our learning mechanisms are. If you gave me the choice between one page of math symbols and ten pages of English prose, I'd take the prose and call it a bargain.

[neutronicus]

I get a distinctly Perl-esque vibe whenever I try to read Haskell. So many pieces of type-system plumbing with non-alphanumeric names and uncertain precedence.

[papsosouid]

What is the deal with haskell? It seems it has some sort of weird property where it causes seemingly rational people to invent crazy nonsense whenever they talk about it. I can't even imagine what type system "plumbing" would be, or how having a type system would make code harder to read. Would you mind providing an example so I know what you mean?

[neutronicus]

'<*>', '>>=', '=<<', '>>>' off the top of my head.

The first has something to do with Functors, the second two something to do with Monads, and the last something to do with Arrows, and I have no idea what their precedence is. The first three all more or less solve the problem of "use a function I'd normally use on values of type `a` on values of type `m a`, where `m` is a Monad or a Functor.

The reasons this stuff makes code hard to read (for me) are:

1. They're all infix and I don't know the precedence.

2. It's not restricted to standard-library code. Oftentimes, learning a new Haskell library involves figuring out which part of the infix line-noise namespace it's staked out for itself.

[chousuke]

Applicative and Monad and their operators are really something I would consider required Haskell knowledge. It's not surprising that you can't read Haskell code if you don't know what those are, because they are everywhere by virtue of being such useful abstractions.

Granted, Haskell people seem to have a sometimes unhealthy attraction towards having operators for everything. The Lens package in particular is rather awful in this regard IMO. (Fortunately there are non-operator equivalents to everything)

[papsosouid]

>'<>', '>>=', '=<<', '>>>' off the top of my head.

None of those have anything to do with the type system though. That's why I called your statement nonsense. They are just ordinary operators like + and -. The habit of claiming everything you dislike about haskell is somehow related to the type system is quite common and rather bizarre.

>The reasons this stuff makes code hard to read (for me) are

The reason is because you haven't learned haskell. If you had never learned arithmetic then 5 + 3 * 7 would make no sense too. That doesn't mean math is hard to understand, it just means you need to take the time to learn it.

>They're all infix and I don't know the precedence.

Use :info in ghci, or look it up on hoogle. Just like you would with a function you aren't familiar with.

    :info (<*>)
    infixl 4 <*>

Left associative, precedence 4. Addition is 6, multiplication is 7.

>It's not restricted to standard-library code.

Lots of languages let you write new operators. If a library creates tons of operators that reflects on the library, not the language.

[papsosouid]

How long have you been using haskell? I had the same sort of thing when I started with it. I can't really remember when exactly that went away, but I gradually just sort of gained haskell literacy over time just from practice.

[marssaxman]

I don't use Haskell, I just read about it.