Yay! I love this book. I'm not sure it quite works as an introduction to functional programming, or even to SML, but it's full of thought-provoking material. I

Yay! I love this book. I'm not sure it quite works as an introduction to functional programming, or even to SML, but it's full of thought-provoking material. It had me hooked when I got to this part of the introduction: "ML is not perfect. Certain pitfalls can allow a simple coding error to waste hours of a programmer’s time. The new standard library introduces incompatibilities between old and new compilers. Warnings of possible hazards appear throughout the book. They look like this: "[skull and crossbones icon] Beware the Duke of Gloucester. O Buckingham! take heed of yonder dog. Look, when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites, his venom tooth will rankle to the death. Have not to do with him, beware of him; Sin, Death, and Hell have set their marks on him, and all their ministers attend on him. "I hasten to add that nothing in ML can have consequences quite this dire. No fault in a program can corrupt the ML system itself. On the other hand, programmers must remember that even correct programs can do harm in the outside world."