Fraser Tweedale

Hi Norton. There are two aspects to this.

First, the fact that many languages let you do I/O anywhere raises the question of whether it is worthwhile to avoid it except where absolutely necessary. It *is* worth it to do so because it lets you use fast and loose reasoning. The "functional core / imperative shell" pattern is an example of how this can work out in practice.

Second, is there a way to perform I/O (or other side effects) in a pure functional program (with all of the benefits that that would imply)? You can - you just need an *interpreter* to do the messy bits. In this sense the pure program is like a recipe: a set of instructions that don't do anything on their own.

Hi Matt. In my opinion, LYAH is good for learning Haskell syntax, and probably OK for beginner programmers. It explains a lot of things well but IMO does not do a great job of teaching foundational abstractions for FP (regardless of language). But these are just my own experiences, and regardless it is definitely a fun and engaging book.