Its easy to call 'condescending' when you simply feel inadequate. Read that strictly: its not condescending if you are actually inferior (in understanding or education).
Functional programming is important, and about real structural things. It can take a long runway to understand why its different, then more learning to get any facility with it. This is not a problem with the languages; some important things are hard and that's just a fact.
So you're saying it's perfectly okay to behave poorly towards people with lesser understanding or education? I'm pretty sure people can tell the difference between those who are speaking at a level that is too difficult for them to understand, and people who are actually condescending.
Read the article? Its about how people take it wrong when the issue is hard and they don't understand. Its about confusion about exactly what you said there.
One takeaway is, when someone expects you to read up on a subject before making conjectures, that's not condescending, that treating you as a competent peer, an adult who can take charge of their own education.
I read the article. It gives one (one!) example of someone who thought a statement was condescending when in reality it was – wait for it – only semi-condescending. Unless you'd like to argue that "take some responsibility for your own learning!" is not even in the least a condescending statement.
It's great that the author has found people in the Haskell community to be generally helpful (and I've been learning some Haskell and thus far have no complaints myself). And I think the author makes an interesting remark that sometimes, by trying to "be easier" on newcomers, that might actually be a form of talking down to them instead of treating them like adults. But to turn that into a blanket "oh, you know, you might think we're condescending but really you just don't get it" is practically satire.
So despite what the author says, and despite having no more proof for my statement than she does, I'll stand by my statement: people can generally spot the difference between condescension and a knowledge gap.
> Unless you'd like to argue that "take some responsibility for your own learning!" is not even in the least a condescending statement.
It depends. Sometimes it's condescending; sometimes it's exactly what one needs to hear. (When I got a very similar statement from a physical therapist about my physical health, it actually was what I needed to hear.) It depends on whether the recipient is being lazy, or is genuinely trying.
But it gets more complicated, because the speaker may mis-judge whether the recipient is trying. Also, the recipient may be lazy but defensive, or lazy but receptive to the criticism. There is no one right answer here; it depends on the people involved.
But clearly there are ways things can be said that lend themselves more to one interpretation or another. We need to own whatever role we have in the problem and work to fix it on the end we control, balanced against whatever other legitimate problems or constraints we're working with.
"Successful communication" is a constraint that probably should trump "phrasing to protect people's feelings" when the two conflict. "Social signalling games" probably should not. Differentiating the two is deliberately made difficult, but we don't get out of that by ignoring it.
Sure all things being equal. When you go to a teacher to be instructed, its counter-productive to be thin-skinned. Even if you are a peer, but are learning the ropes from a more-experienced player, best to take the information without emotionally investing in the style of messaging.
I agree that the parent reads like it condones too much bad behavior. At the same time, I think "people can tell the difference between those who are speaking at a level that is too difficult for them to understand, and people who are actually condescending" is not as true as we might hope.
Functional programming is important, and about real structural things. It can take a long runway to understand why its different, then more learning to get any facility with it. This is not a problem with the languages; some important things are hard and that's just a fact.