I've been evangelizing Haskell in particular and functional programming in general to my (fellow Comp Sci major) roommate the last week. The walls are coming down, but I'm fighting misconceptions and unconsciously absorbed dogma similar to what Perl faces.

It's (too) slow, no one uses it, it's unreadable. They apply to both. "It's crippled" applies only to Haskell, from the mouth of someone who's locked in the imperative paradigm.

The analogy breaks down now, because I'm working on one peer, not a boss or boss^N, nor a whole company.

I don't know where these "it's slow, it's line noise" notions come from, but they are so deeply entrenched in people who have perhaps never seen the language in question that it becomes nigh impossible to change minds, even as a peer.

Perl and Haskell both make better Javas than Java itself. But I agree with the thinking about Perl 5: it is somehow a "Has Not" in the minds of so many programmers and managers. Perhaps Perl 6 will become the new hotness. I hope for that day, whenever it will come.

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