2 ms·

There _is_ a Little MLer (with examples in Caml and Standard ML), which teaches type-based programming very well, and would be worth reading for anyone setting

by jimwise 16y ago

There _is_ a Little MLer (with examples in Caml and Standard ML), which teaches type-based programming very well, and would be worth reading for anyone setting out to learn Haskell, I imagine (I respect Haskell's purity, but program in ML and Scala, the same way I respect Ada's safety, but program in C, so a better Haskeller than myself may disagree. :-)). However, none of the Little ___er books are, of themselves, good ways to learn to use the language they are in; they're more like finger exercises when learning piano -- they reinforce your mental muscles to make thinking in the right way for those languages feel more natural.

malandrew 16y ago
I agree that "The Little ____er" books aren't the best to learn how to apply a language in the real world. I also agree with your "piano finger lesson" analogy. However, where "The Little _____er" books excel and overcome all other teaching formats I've seen is in introducing complex paradigm-shifting concepts in a way that is digestable in tiny chunks. Concepts such as monads, zippers and list comprehension are exactly the the type of concepts that are very difficult to teach/explain using common teaching approaches that "tell, but do not show" The socratic method used in "The Little Schemer" makes sure to dismantle these extremely abstract concepts into atoms '(pun intended). You really need to understand each atomic piece before you move on. In most explanations of monads the teacher rattles off a long run-on sentence that touches on several facets of a concept such as monads, making it all that much harder to digest. In fact, most sentences/paragraphs attempting to explaining monads just cause the learner to choke on the terseness and density of information being communicated in one utterance. The way I see it, both types of books are very valuable. The Little Schemer teaches recursion as a concept better than any other text I've seen. I've never seen anything else that come close. In fact, most texts that touch on recursion quickly move into comparing it to iteration both in form and performance. SICP is an example of a teaching resource that does this. If I remember correctly, the first time you really see recursion in SICP is when the book discusses Ackermann's function and the pros and cons of recursion versus iteration.

by jimwise 16y ago

malandrew 16y ago

I agree that "The Little ____er" books aren't the best to learn how to apply a language in the real world. I also agree with your "piano finger lesson" analogy. However, where "The Little _____er" books excel and overcome all other teaching formats I've seen is in introducing complex paradigm-shifting concepts in a way that is digestable in tiny chunks. Concepts such as monads, zippers and list comprehension are exactly the the type of concepts that are very difficult to teach/explain using common teaching approaches that "tell, but do not show" The socratic method used in "The Little Schemer" makes sure to dismantle these extremely abstract concepts into atoms '(pun intended). You really need to understand each atomic piece before you move on. In most explanations of monads the teacher rattles off a long run-on sentence that touches on several facets of a concept such as monads, making it all that much harder to digest. In fact, most sentences/paragraphs attempting to explaining monads just cause the learner to choke on the terseness and density of information being communicated in one utterance. The way I see it, both types of books are very valuable. The Little Schemer teaches recursion as a concept better than any other text I've seen. I've never seen anything else that come close. In fact, most texts that touch on recursion quickly move into comparing it to iteration both in form and performance. SICP is an example of a teaching resource that does this. If I remember correctly, the first time you really see recursion in SICP is when the book discusses Ackermann's function and the pros and cons of recursion versus iteration.