> I think it's equally a disservice to tell people it's too complex to learn. There's a common impression people get that they have to master category theory before they can begin to understand Haskell code. That's also troubling and kind of what I was getting at with this whole thing in a round-about-way.

Ah, I see where you're coming from more now. Yes, the "category theory is recommended alongside learning haskell" meme is terrible. In that context saying Haskell is simple is an improvement. I think people can handle nuance though, and "haskell has a simple core, but in practice GHC haskell is a big language" is something they can handle.