Tony Morris

Also i somewhat find it ridiculous, that to learn or play with haskell, i have to learn yet another language/ package manager. It is overwhelming for a beginner. PS: i the data61 course. Learning a lot from it.

I'm sorry that has been made difficult for you. If you need help with learning, please ask in forums such as the QFPL/Data61 channel.

I started off with CIS194 and stack seemed to work no problems, and IntelliJ + Haskell pluging could import my project which was nice for someone used to having an IDE. I can't get the NICTA course to build :(

Don't try building it. Just type ghci.

Ok that works but I still think it would be nice if the nicta course played nicely with stack. It was great being able to Ctrl-Click on functions in IntelliJ and go straight to the definitions. Flattens the learning curve a bit for people used to Visual Studio/XCode/Intelli J.

Stack is an impediment to learning. The NICTA course is primarily focused on learning, and so impediments are swiftly discarded.

I know you hate stack and maybe it's terrible (?) but a lot of beginners (myself included) will be following the suggested route to learning haskell suggested by @bitemyapp (CIS194 then NICTA) and switching toolsets between courses feels like a bigger impediment to learning.

I don't hate stack. It is an impediment to learning, overall, big picture. I will just keep teaching effectively, discarding all impediments, including stack. Sorry that stack was, and probably will continue to be, an impediment for you.