8 ms·

Haskell School of Music by Paul Hudak

145 points by zura 15y ago

scarmig 15y ago
It's hard not to appreciate Paul Hudak, who's at the forefront of research in functional reactive programming. If you've heard of Yampa or Fran, they're children of his, as is Euterpea (which this book is centered on). He also wrote the Haskell School of Expression, an introductory text which touches on multimedia more generally. IIRC he was diagnosed with a serious form of leukemia awhile back. It's good to see that he's still finding time to do cool things!
- dons 15y ago
  One of his other children is a US champion freestyle skier. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700109560/Skier-Jen-Hudak-takes-inspiration-from-her-father.html http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700109560/Skier-Jen-Hudak...
- fusiongyro 15y ago
  H:SoE was the best Haskell book on the market when I was learning Haskell. Great book, but I really needed the depth of RWH to get anywhere practical.
ericssmith 15y ago
I'm looking forward to going through this book. Hudak's 'Haskell School of Expression' is one of the books that helped me understand FP, and Haskell in particular. Multimedia applications are not among my current interests, but there were many subtle nuggets in that book that sharpened my functional viewpoint. Although 'Haskell School of Expression' is written to be an introductory text, I have trouble seeing it that way, in part because of the multimedia aspect. Graham Hutton's 'Programming in Haskell' is a carefully written beginner text. Functional programming, and Haskell in particular, reward patience. Hudak's and Hutton's books both have a high impact to time spent ratio. I suspect 'School of Music' will as well. [EDIT - Just looked through it. It is School of Expression rewritten for music rather than multimedia. Cool]
efnx 15y ago
This is exactly what I've been looking for. I've been searching (for years) for a good alternative to SuperCollider and thought Haskell would be great for DSP, but couldn't find a library ready to use. Now I get a lib and a book! :)
austintaylor 15y ago
Direct link to the PDF: http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/hudak/Papers/HSoM.pdf http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/hudak/Papers/HSoM.pdf
- Smudge 15y ago
  He was just starting this book around 2008 when I attended a computer music class he taught. Really great class - opened my eyes to the power of functional programming. I'm really happy to see how far he has been able to take this, despite the leukemia diagnosis.
jfb 15y ago
I loved the HSoE; I found it ages ago in a bookstore in London, while on vacation. I read it to rags. Looking forward to the update.
- joeyh 15y ago
  I read HSoE a couple of weeks ago to see what more adacamically oriented Haskell books were like. I'm glad I started with RWH, and LYaH covers a lot more ground, but HSoE is excellent in the clarity of what it does cover, in using graphics quite nicely for examples (dated graphics library though), and especially for teaching how to do proofs using Haskell (which also includes teaching well how to evaluate haskell code in your head, and how to think about space leaks). If the new book does the same, and also teaches something about computer music, it sounds like a real winner.
- gtani 15y ago
  read it to rags I like that. My LY and RW are pretty raggedy, and I've basically written my own indexes for those books. (Let's not forget the other books: Hutton, Thompson, Road to Logic, Bird's Pearls (which i haven't read))
  - jfb 15y ago
    I remember staying in a friend's basement flat in South London, and taking baths with HSoE. The book was largely destroyed by the time I got on the plane home, but I was entranced.
bos 15y ago
Its author, Paul Hudak, is undergoing a lung biopsy today. Send your best wishes his way.
dustingetz 15y ago
i've googled and amazoned and the yale site is down. how do i buy a print version?
- atdt 15y ago
  There were two reasonably-priced used copies of the book at the Strand in New York as of yesterday afternoon.
  - LyleK 15y ago
    Are you referring The Haskell School of Expression? I don't think this new music book has been published in physical form yet.
    - atdt 15y ago
      Yes, sorry. The article link was down when I was first read the comments, so I wasn't aware of this new book.
- hristov 15y ago
  Use the PDF link another HNer shared above.
pacaro 15y ago
Paul Hudak also has a video of a presentation of some of this material at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtmo6Bmfahc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtmo6Bmfahc
sharkbot 15y ago
I pulled the Euterpea source from the website and tried the tutorial in GHCi 7.0.4. It complained that the definition of times (n+1) m is invalid. If anyone is trying out the tutorial and gets the same error, replace that definition of "times" with times n m = m :+: (times (n-1) m) and you should be good.
- zura 15y ago
  Hm, I guess that means n+k pattern matching is finally removed.
  - sold 15y ago
    Yes, it was removed in the Haskell 2010 standard, which is the default from GHC 7.0. http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/haskell-prime/wiki/RemoveNPlusK http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/haskell-prime/wiki/RemoveNPl...
nicklovescode 15y ago
Read the title as Haskell Musical, and thought the name was pretty clever. I'll just leave this here.

145 points by zura 15y ago

It's hard not to appreciate Paul Hudak, who's at the forefront of research in functional reactive programming. If you've heard of Yampa or Fran, they're children of his, as is Euterpea (which this book is centered on). He also wrote the Haskell School of Expression, an introductory text which touches on multimedia more generally. IIRC he was diagnosed with a serious form of leukemia awhile back. It's good to see that he's still finding time to do cool things!

dons 15y ago
One of his other children is a US champion freestyle skier. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700109560/Skier-Jen-Hudak-takes-inspiration-from-her-father.html http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700109560/Skier-Jen-Hudak...
fusiongyro 15y ago
H:SoE was the best Haskell book on the market when I was learning Haskell. Great book, but I really needed the depth of RWH to get anywhere practical.

ericssmith 15y ago

I'm looking forward to going through this book. Hudak's 'Haskell School of Expression' is one of the books that helped me understand FP, and Haskell in particular. Multimedia applications are not among my current interests, but there were many subtle nuggets in that book that sharpened my functional viewpoint. Although 'Haskell School of Expression' is written to be an introductory text, I have trouble seeing it that way, in part because of the multimedia aspect. Graham Hutton's 'Programming in Haskell' is a carefully written beginner text. Functional programming, and Haskell in particular, reward patience. Hudak's and Hutton's books both have a high impact to time spent ratio. I suspect 'School of Music' will as well. [EDIT - Just looked through it. It is School of Expression rewritten for music rather than multimedia. Cool]

efnx 15y ago

This is exactly what I've been looking for. I've been searching (for years) for a good alternative to SuperCollider and thought Haskell would be great for DSP, but couldn't find a library ready to use. Now I get a lib and a book! :)

austintaylor 15y ago

Direct link to the PDF: http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/hudak/Papers/HSoM.pdf http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/hudak/Papers/HSoM.pdf

Smudge 15y ago
He was just starting this book around 2008 when I attended a computer music class he taught. Really great class - opened my eyes to the power of functional programming. I'm really happy to see how far he has been able to take this, despite the leukemia diagnosis.

jfb 15y ago

I loved the HSoE; I found it ages ago in a bookstore in London, while on vacation. I read it to rags. Looking forward to the update.

joeyh 15y ago
I read HSoE a couple of weeks ago to see what more adacamically oriented Haskell books were like. I'm glad I started with RWH, and LYaH covers a lot more ground, but HSoE is excellent in the clarity of what it does cover, in using graphics quite nicely for examples (dated graphics library though), and especially for teaching how to do proofs using Haskell (which also includes teaching well how to evaluate haskell code in your head, and how to think about space leaks). If the new book does the same, and also teaches something about computer music, it sounds like a real winner.
gtani 15y ago
read it to rags I like that. My LY and RW are pretty raggedy, and I've basically written my own indexes for those books. (Let's not forget the other books: Hutton, Thompson, Road to Logic, Bird's Pearls (which i haven't read))
- jfb 15y ago
  I remember staying in a friend's basement flat in South London, and taking baths with HSoE. The book was largely destroyed by the time I got on the plane home, but I was entranced.

bos 15y ago

Its author, Paul Hudak, is undergoing a lung biopsy today. Send your best wishes his way.

dustingetz 15y ago

i've googled and amazoned and the yale site is down. how do i buy a print version?

atdt 15y ago
There were two reasonably-priced used copies of the book at the Strand in New York as of yesterday afternoon.
- LyleK 15y ago
  Are you referring The Haskell School of Expression? I don't think this new music book has been published in physical form yet.
  - atdt 15y ago
    Yes, sorry. The article link was down when I was first read the comments, so I wasn't aware of this new book.
hristov 15y ago
Use the PDF link another HNer shared above.

pacaro 15y ago

Paul Hudak also has a video of a presentation of some of this material at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtmo6Bmfahc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtmo6Bmfahc

sharkbot 15y ago

I pulled the Euterpea source from the website and tried the tutorial in GHCi 7.0.4. It complained that the definition of times (n+1) m is invalid. If anyone is trying out the tutorial and gets the same error, replace that definition of "times" with times n m = m :+: (times (n-1) m) and you should be good.

zura 15y ago
Hm, I guess that means n+k pattern matching is finally removed.
- sold 15y ago
  Yes, it was removed in the Haskell 2010 standard, which is the default from GHC 7.0. http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/haskell-prime/wiki/RemoveNPlusK http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/haskell-prime/wiki/RemoveNPl...

nicklovescode 15y ago

Read the title as Haskell Musical, and thought the name was pretty clever. I'll just leave this here.