So I've interacted with many of the leading Haskell people (SPJ, Wadler, among others) and I never really got that feeling from them. They were just super smart people with different fascinating ways of thinking (from my perspective). They never came off as very smug, in fact, they weren't really that interested in what you thought about Haskell; they were too busy using it to solve problems. I think in that way, Haskell continues to be the language that defies success, at least in the way that many would define it (mass adoption - Haskell seems to be super successful to those people, and I don't think I would disagree with them).
Haskell programmers do seem to work on more elegant solutions to problems that are easily solved less purely. This is not a useless activity, it can help in understanding those problems more deeply, but it is hard for an outsider to appreciate. I know I will never be a Haskeller, simply because I am interested in different problems.
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So I've interacted with many of the leading Haskell people (SPJ, Wadler, among others) and I never really got that feeling from them. They were just super smart people with different fascinating ways of thinking (from my perspective). They never came off as very smug, in fact, they weren't really that interested in what you thought about Haskell; they were too busy using it to solve problems. I think in that way, Haskell continues to be the language that defies success, at least in the way that many would define it (mass adoption - Haskell seems to be super successful to those people, and I don't think I would disagree with them).
Haskell programmers do seem to work on more elegant solutions to problems that are easily solved less purely. This is not a useless activity, it can help in understanding those problems more deeply, but it is hard for an outsider to appreciate. I know I will never be a Haskeller, simply because I am interested in different problems.