practical common lisp is also nice for a quick practical intro

"If you don't paint a picture with this specific paint, it's not a painting". So if someone were to format the code differently, say put each right bracket on a new line, the compiler would fail?

Haskell and Lisp are languages that by nature pull CS and math wizards

They pull them because he learning material is written for them. If the learning material were written for non-wizards, it would attract non-wizards.

"Learn you a Haskell" is not a good book, IMO. It teaches exactly in the style mentioned. Just look at the part on applicative functors.

fmap :: (a -> b) -> f a -> f b It says: give me a function that takes an a and returns a b and a box with an a (or several of them) inside it and I’ll give you a box with a b (or several of them) inside it. It kind of applies the function to the element inside the box.

He has to describe what the function does because the function declaration doesn't use clear variables or type names. He says the word "box" but writes "f". Why not just write "box"?

The entire CS and maths field is filled with people who suck terribly at explaining anything to anybody who doesn't think like them. Monads aren't terribly complicated, but the way they are explained is. Every book trying to explain them makes the mistake of going deep first and then zooming out. They explain in excruciatingly minute detail how monads are built, what other complicated concept they are like, and use single letter names for everything in that explanation.

 class (Functor f) => Applicative f where  

     pure :: a -> f a  

     (<\*>) :: f (a -> b) -> f a -> f b

Same here. Then the examples use Just which doesn't help with readability either. It would read much better if the code were actually literal instead of using shorthands for everything. More mental energy has to go into keeping a mapping table for every letter in the alphabet instead of it being written explicitly, right there.

It's why I hate reading Haskell declarations and old code. Programmers back then just used 1-4 characters for everything. char, bool, m_lnr, T, R, I, f, g, h,.... As if they were constantly on the run from the last person who had to read and maintain their code.

You might be a Haskell teacher, but that doesn't say anything about the quality of your teaching. I play basketball and could even coach a team, but there's nothing that will say whether I'm a good coach. If I get a team of people who already play well together, speak my lingo, and jive with me, they might think I'm a good coach. But if I get a team of beginners who have never heard my vernacular, can't understand my mannerisms, and think "tough love" and the cold shoulder make me a dick, they'll think I suck.