5 ms·

Learn you a Haskell for great good

61 points by christofd 18y ago

chollida1 18y ago
This was the first tutorial that I used to learn Haskell way back when. If you liked Why's Ruby tutorial then this might be good for you. What I liked: 1) The Modules and Typeclasses sections 2) The operator tutorials, there are sections where they introduce all related operators, I like this method of introducing operators. I did have 2 complaints with it. 1) Thought it's somewhat incomplete, missing the monad tutorial and 2) It's more of a small snippets on how to use the syntax, it doesn't teach by building programs that can solve real world problems. This may not be much of a problem depending on how you learn. Though back when I read it RWH wasn't out yet so your choices were more limited back then.
- smanek 18y ago
  I'm enjoying RWH (available freely at http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/ http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/). I'm only about a third of the way through it, but every few chapters the author ostensibly takes a break from the pedagogy to show us how to build a real program (in reality, there is a lot of teaching in those chapters, so don't skip them).
blasdel 18y ago
I like the material that's been posted so far, but the true test will be how he tries to handle a head-on discussion of Monads. I've been checking up on it every so often since it was first released, and I just noticed he has a (crappy) feed now.
TweedHeads 18y ago
If Haskell is good for webpages then I may give it a try, if not I´ll pass. If it is, please somebody show us how to spit html and from there we´ll pick it up. No better-than-sex monads, no intergalactic scripting services, no functional masturbation. I really want to know if it is going to save me time and resources for my next startup, nothing else.
- jrockway 18y ago
  I really want to know if it is going to save me time and resources for my next startup, nothing else. You should probably learn to program before starting a software company. If it is, please somebody show us how to spit html and from there we´ll pick it up. No better-than-sex monads, no intergalactic scripting services, no functional masturbation. Anyway, to print HTML in Haskell, try this: putStrLn "<html><head><title>Hello, world</title></head><body>Hello, world!</body></html>" Amazing, although I'm not sure what you gain by doing this. (As an aside, I prefer HXT to generate XHTML programatically. It doesn't involve "better-than-sex monads", either, although it does involve Arrows.) I wish I could resist the urge to reply to trolls, but apparently I can't.
- jerf 18y ago
  I've spent some time with Haskell and I like it well enough, but: In all seriousness, if you don't already know Haskell, I would not recommend using it in a web startup. That's not a time to be learning Haskell. Go with something you know, or, failing that, one of the Python frameworks.
- gord 18y ago
  Hmm.. in my case, part of the fun of learning Scheme was that it had an excellent article on how to generate html web pages... and the syntax was nice [like arc and ruby]. Same for arc, but its newer so lacks the many pre-configured libraries. Haskell is a nice language, its just a matter of time until someone writes a web tutorial like that, than a web framework etc etc. But Haskell might be a bit more of a mathematically pure / sophisticated language.. you'd need to commit to some study I think to master it - whereas with ruby [or python] you can sort of hack in a php style, and learn nicer things later on. Ive seen good blog discussions that 'Ruby is a good enough lisp' and it sort of is to a first order. So don't sweat it, just use ruby or python or scheme.. or Haskell if it resonates with you. They're all so much more enjoyable than Java or C++ :]
juliend2 18y ago
I have a question for the hackers here. Im a beginner programmer (<1 year of real world programming experience so far). What is the kind of problems (web app in particular) that functional programming helps to resolve? And if i dont use myself all the features of OOP in Ruby, does it makes me a "functional programmer"? There must be some concepts that are unique to functional programming. What is the Essence of functional programming vs OOP programming? Why functional programming? (it would be nice for me to have a wikipedia page about this but in simple english). Thanks in advance.
- michaelneale 18y ago
  I think web apps are an interesting thing to try at least with FP - in a sense its functional: response = f(request). You certainly can do FP style in most languages, but when you at least play with something that is more a pure FP (haskell is great and beautiful) it really makes sense when you see those concepts applied elsewhere - an interesting way to use haskell is Happs: http://dbpatterson.com/articles/5 http://dbpatterson.com/articles/5 (the haskell app server). Just make sure its fun !
  - arebop 18y ago
    I agree that functional programming and web applications fit nicely together. response = f(request) probably won't mean much to someone who has no familiarity with fp, though. http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm#sec_5_1_3 http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch... is a key section of a very readable explanation of web architecture. I think it could serve as a very practical, if unconventional, demonstration of the usefulness of referential transparency.
    - michaelneale 18y ago
      yes I guess I made the assumption of some level of maths - but perhaps its not common for people starting out now (I know it took me years before I appreciated all the mathematical stuff).
- jrockway 18y ago

61 points by christofd 18y ago

This was the first tutorial that I used to learn Haskell way back when. If you liked Why's Ruby tutorial then this might be good for you. What I liked: 1) The Modules and Typeclasses sections 2) The operator tutorials, there are sections where they introduce all related operators, I like this method of introducing operators. I did have 2 complaints with it. 1) Thought it's somewhat incomplete, missing the monad tutorial and 2) It's more of a small snippets on how to use the syntax, it doesn't teach by building programs that can solve real world problems. This may not be much of a problem depending on how you learn. Though back when I read it RWH wasn't out yet so your choices were more limited back then.

smanek 18y ago
I'm enjoying RWH (available freely at http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/ http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/). I'm only about a third of the way through it, but every few chapters the author ostensibly takes a break from the pedagogy to show us how to build a real program (in reality, there is a lot of teaching in those chapters, so don't skip them).

blasdel 18y ago

I like the material that's been posted so far, but the true test will be how he tries to handle a head-on discussion of Monads. I've been checking up on it every so often since it was first released, and I just noticed he has a (crappy) feed now.

TweedHeads 18y ago

If Haskell is good for webpages then I may give it a try, if not I´ll pass. If it is, please somebody show us how to spit html and from there we´ll pick it up. No better-than-sex monads, no intergalactic scripting services, no functional masturbation. I really want to know if it is going to save me time and resources for my next startup, nothing else.

jrockway 18y ago
I really want to know if it is going to save me time and resources for my next startup, nothing else. You should probably learn to program before starting a software company. If it is, please somebody show us how to spit html and from there we´ll pick it up. No better-than-sex monads, no intergalactic scripting services, no functional masturbation. Anyway, to print HTML in Haskell, try this: putStrLn "<html><head><title>Hello, world</title></head><body>Hello, world!</body></html>" Amazing, although I'm not sure what you gain by doing this. (As an aside, I prefer HXT to generate XHTML programatically. It doesn't involve "better-than-sex monads", either, although it does involve Arrows.) I wish I could resist the urge to reply to trolls, but apparently I can't.
jerf 18y ago
I've spent some time with Haskell and I like it well enough, but: In all seriousness, if you don't already know Haskell, I would not recommend using it in a web startup. That's not a time to be learning Haskell. Go with something you know, or, failing that, one of the Python frameworks.
gord 18y ago
Hmm.. in my case, part of the fun of learning Scheme was that it had an excellent article on how to generate html web pages... and the syntax was nice [like arc and ruby]. Same for arc, but its newer so lacks the many pre-configured libraries. Haskell is a nice language, its just a matter of time until someone writes a web tutorial like that, than a web framework etc etc. But Haskell might be a bit more of a mathematically pure / sophisticated language.. you'd need to commit to some study I think to master it - whereas with ruby [or python] you can sort of hack in a php style, and learn nicer things later on. Ive seen good blog discussions that 'Ruby is a good enough lisp' and it sort of is to a first order. So don't sweat it, just use ruby or python or scheme.. or Haskell if it resonates with you. They're all so much more enjoyable than Java or C++ :]

juliend2 18y ago

I have a question for the hackers here. Im a beginner programmer (<1 year of real world programming experience so far). What is the kind of problems (web app in particular) that functional programming helps to resolve? And if i dont use myself all the features of OOP in Ruby, does it makes me a "functional programmer"? There must be some concepts that are unique to functional programming. What is the Essence of functional programming vs OOP programming? Why functional programming? (it would be nice for me to have a wikipedia page about this but in simple english). Thanks in advance.

michaelneale 18y ago
I think web apps are an interesting thing to try at least with FP - in a sense its functional: response = f(request). You certainly can do FP style in most languages, but when you at least play with something that is more a pure FP (haskell is great and beautiful) it really makes sense when you see those concepts applied elsewhere - an interesting way to use haskell is Happs: http://dbpatterson.com/articles/5 http://dbpatterson.com/articles/5 (the haskell app server). Just make sure its fun !
- arebop 18y ago
  I agree that functional programming and web applications fit nicely together. response = f(request) probably won't mean much to someone who has no familiarity with fp, though. http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm#sec_5_1_3 http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch... is a key section of a very readable explanation of web architecture. I think it could serve as a very practical, if unconventional, demonstration of the usefulness of referential transparency.
  - michaelneale 18y ago
    yes I guess I made the assumption of some level of maths - but perhaps its not common for people starting out now (I know it took me years before I appreciated all the mathematical stuff).
jrockway 18y ago