[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.