Is Haskell's type system an obstacle to understanding functional programming?

Posted by Eric Wilson on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Eric Wilson
Published on 2010-12-22T03:24:57Z Indexed on 2011/11/15 2:10 UTC
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Filed under:

learning

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functional-programming

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type-system

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haskell

I'm studying Haskell for the purpose of understanding functional programming, with the expectation that I'll apply the insight that I gain in other languages (Groovy, Python, JavaScript mainly.)

I choose Haskell because I had the impression that it is very purely functional, and wouldn't allow for any reliance on state.

I did not choose to learn Haskell because I was interested in navigating an extremely rigid type system.

My question is this: Is a strong type system a necessary by-product of an extremely pure functional language, or is this an unrelated design choice particular to Haskell?

If it is the latter, I'm curious what would be the most purely functional language that is dynamically typed.

I'm not particularly opposed to strong typing, it has its place, but I'm having a hard time seeing how it benefits me in this educational endeavor.

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