I learned Haskell in school. Then I worked with it in a web startup. I've done fun hobby projects with it. I really enjoy it a lot. I'm not super smart and I don't know any advanced math. I'm not sure what the problem is at all. The language works fine, has a vibrant community, it's growing, and it's inspiring lots of programmers and language designers too.
I don't think I'll ever be a great concert pianist, but I just accept this as one of my limitations. I have never put in the necessary effort, and even if I did, I doubt I would have the required amount of talent. It would never have occurred to me to blame it on pianos.
And if the piano were an instrument almost nobody used and on which almost no popular or well-regarded music were played or composed, I'd agree with this snarky reply. This isn't a particularly apt analogy because concert pianists are judged by their output (i.e. piano music). The argument from the Haskell community seems to be that almost nobody is interested in using the tool (Haskell) for its intended purpose (writing software) because the people themselves are deficient. Haskell is a character-building exercise to write blog posts about, even after all these years, rather than something to be adopted in production.
And before you think I'm just hating on Haskell, the same is essentially true of Lisp as well.
My position is that learning functional programming lies within the grasp of many if not most programmers if they put in the necessary effort, and well worthwhile as it will make them better programmers as they will then see ways of solving problems that hitherto wouldn't have occurred to them, or are painful to implement in other languages. I wouldn't be put off a language (whether Haskell or Lisp) simply because some of its programmers come across as a bit condescending.
