Empathy goes a long way in programming discussions simply because for _all_ of us, we often make decisions and hold opinions regarding programming based on gut feel but far less often are honest about the origin of said opinions - falsely attributing them to some &quot;truth&quot; we somehow have come to know.<p>What I mean to say is, from my perspective, it&#x27;s quite easy to see why the Haskell community exists as it does - most of the people who criticize it do not understand even the most basic fundamentals of it and simply are not qualified to have an opinion. Just as I am not qualified to have an opinion on anything to do with, for example, graphics programming, many people simply do not have the experience to have said qualification - not a judgement, simply a statement of fact.<p>Haskell certainly is not perfect nor is it likely the pinnacle of programming languages - however I don&#x27;t know a single person in reality who believes that to be the case. However this is exactly the persona a significant number of Haskell criticisms seems to attack.<p>So at the end of the day, when the majority of the criticism against the language is _fundamentally wrong_ in fact and based on false assumptions, it&#x27;s no surprise criticism isn&#x27;t as well accepted as with other communities.<p>Now having said all that, after spending a good part of the last two months actually endeavoring to learn Haskell and functional programming at a practical level - I can tell you there are MANY valid criticisms to be made, and the thing is, if you read Haskell mailing lists and other online communities, you&#x27;ll find that they constantly are being made and discussed rationally, the only difference is they are coming from people who are clearly familiar with the language, and the concepts they are discussing. These discussions, however, are far less interesting to any tech media because a.) they involve topics and terms few people are currently familiar with and b.) they aren&#x27;t abrasive or hostile, and that simply is _boring_ to the media.<p>One final comment - Haskell is not hard to learn, any reasonably skilled programmer willing to step outside their comfort zone could within a month be at a place where they would be qualified to critique the language. Which is the primary reason why it is so frustrating, at least to me, that so few people actually do before writing criticisms of the language.