when I started out to learn functional style programming I wanted to build a real project. I tried several languages out and I settled with F# because I just didn't like the enforced purity of Haskell and laziness as a default.
It just cost me so much time to constantly think about IO that I was barely figuring out what I wanted to write. It seemed impractical to me and now with some more experience I still think it is. Ocaml type languages strike a better balance in my opinion if you're interacting with the world.
I can assure you that, with practice, Haskell can be a very practical language. Having IO in the types lets one reason about where the effects are happening, which is especially important when trying to solve real world problems with functional techniques (i.e. transforming unreliable streams of data).
It just cost me so much time to constantly think about IO that I was barely figuring out what I wanted to write. It seemed impractical to me and now with some more experience I still think it is. Ocaml type languages strike a better balance in my opinion if you're interacting with the world.