5 ms·

I'm just starting to learn Haskell, reading "Learn You A Haskell..." I didn't realize that Haskell documentation isn't considered very good. Does HN agree with

by Kluny 13y ago

I'm just starting to learn Haskell, reading "Learn You A Haskell..." I didn't realize that Haskell documentation isn't considered very good. Does HN agree with that? Are there any must read documents besides the official ones and Learn You A Haskell to mitigate that problem?

tel 13y ago
A lot of intermediate Haskell material (and advanced Haskell material) is locked up in a series of papers. They're usually well-written, but the intermediate Haskell canon is not well-defined nor is it in a comfortable format; I often find that when I recommend a paper to someone they have a tendency to be turned away... even if it's a tutorial paper not so different from a blog post.
- Buttons840 13y ago
  If someone started a blog where they give an approachable overview of all these papers, would that be helpful? Would such a blog be considered rude since many people would read the blog summary instead of the actual paper?
  - klrr 13y ago
    Okey, this is a question to the parent of the comment I reply to. (I couldn't reply to tel for some reason). Do you have any example were the documentation available is only scientific or technical papers? I've been learning Haskell for a year now, and even though I've read some papers due to interest I've never felt like it was the only form of documentation.
    - tel 13y ago
      I'd say that people often reference intermediate Haskellers to a number of major papers like Data Types A La Carte or the Typeclassopedia. The entire set of Functional Pearls are released in academic paper form and provide a really wonderful glimpse into "advanced" Haskell style. You also would probably want to take a look at many of the things that Jeffrey Gibbons or Oleg Kiselyov have written. I could think of others if I dedicated some time to it, but those come up fairly frequently.
  - tel 13y ago
    I think that'd be a wonderful idea. Many of these papers have important depth that would be difficult to cover in a blog post, but the blog could easily serve as a nice directory.
  - judk 13y ago
    The blog would or wonderful. Or contribute to the Haskell wikibook or FPComplete's School of Haskell.
niels 13y ago
I started reading "Beginning Haskell". So far the most practical Haskell learning resource I've encountered. http://www.apress.com/9781430262503 http://www.apress.com/9781430262503
TheCoelacanth 13y ago
There are some good beginner tutorials, but beyond that the documentation is absolutely terrible. The typical documentation for a Haskell library will be a page that lists all of the modules in the library with a link to a page for each module. The page for each module will be a list of functions in the module with a type signature, and if you are lucky a one sentence description of what the function does. There will not be a single explanation or example of how to actually use the library.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  ... and for the majority of things, that's absolutely fine. Function name + type signature + short description is very frequently plenty. decodeUtf8 :: ByteString -> Text There are also quite a few things that are thoroughly documented, sometimes not in the Haddock (which, there's some argument, should be kept simple like a reference). Yesod has a book, and I hear Snap's getting one. There are certainly cases that both don't have thorough documentation and need it, but they're not as many as you imply.
freyrs3 13y ago
Part of the issue is the wide spectrum of code of Haskell that people write. Beginners to Haskell will write code that is very radically different from the code that more experienced programmers write. Not to say that code that one writes in the style of Learn-You-Haskell or Real-World-Haskell level is bad but there is a wide range of choices of how to write Haskell. Haskell also tends to also have a wide gap between beginner material and advanced material and not a whole lot in between. Some beginners will often come and see advanced discussions about the lens library for instance and will assume that they need to learn the lens library in order to program in Haskell. This just leads to disaster since it's nearly impossible for beginners to decipher the type error messages that come out of it until they grok the type system at a more advanced level.
zeckalpha 13y ago
I enjoy http://book.realworldhaskell.org/ http://book.realworldhaskell.org/
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
chowells 13y ago
Part of the reason intermediate documentation is a bit lacking is the incredible usefulness of the #haskell freenode IRC channel. If you ever have any questions about haskell, feel free to drop by and ask. There's usually at least one person around who'll be willing to take the time to explain it in as much depth as you need.

by Kluny 13y ago

tel 13y ago

A lot of intermediate Haskell material (and advanced Haskell material) is locked up in a series of papers. They're usually well-written, but the intermediate Haskell canon is not well-defined nor is it in a comfortable format; I often find that when I recommend a paper to someone they have a tendency to be turned away... even if it's a tutorial paper not so different from a blog post.

Buttons840 13y ago
If someone started a blog where they give an approachable overview of all these papers, would that be helpful? Would such a blog be considered rude since many people would read the blog summary instead of the actual paper?
- klrr 13y ago
  Okey, this is a question to the parent of the comment I reply to. (I couldn't reply to tel for some reason). Do you have any example were the documentation available is only scientific or technical papers? I've been learning Haskell for a year now, and even though I've read some papers due to interest I've never felt like it was the only form of documentation.
  - tel 13y ago
    I'd say that people often reference intermediate Haskellers to a number of major papers like Data Types A La Carte or the Typeclassopedia. The entire set of Functional Pearls are released in academic paper form and provide a really wonderful glimpse into "advanced" Haskell style. You also would probably want to take a look at many of the things that Jeffrey Gibbons or Oleg Kiselyov have written. I could think of others if I dedicated some time to it, but those come up fairly frequently.
- tel 13y ago
  I think that'd be a wonderful idea. Many of these papers have important depth that would be difficult to cover in a blog post, but the blog could easily serve as a nice directory.
- judk 13y ago
  The blog would or wonderful. Or contribute to the Haskell wikibook or FPComplete's School of Haskell.

niels 13y ago

I started reading "Beginning Haskell". So far the most practical Haskell learning resource I've encountered. http://www.apress.com/9781430262503 http://www.apress.com/9781430262503

TheCoelacanth 13y ago

There are some good beginner tutorials, but beyond that the documentation is absolutely terrible. The typical documentation for a Haskell library will be a page that lists all of the modules in the library with a link to a page for each module. The page for each module will be a list of functions in the module with a type signature, and if you are lucky a one sentence description of what the function does. There will not be a single explanation or example of how to actually use the library.

dllthomas 13y ago
... and for the majority of things, that's absolutely fine. Function name + type signature + short description is very frequently plenty. decodeUtf8 :: ByteString -> Text There are also quite a few things that are thoroughly documented, sometimes not in the Haddock (which, there's some argument, should be kept simple like a reference). Yesod has a book, and I hear Snap's getting one. There are certainly cases that both don't have thorough documentation and need it, but they're not as many as you imply.

freyrs3 13y ago

Part of the issue is the wide spectrum of code of Haskell that people write. Beginners to Haskell will write code that is very radically different from the code that more experienced programmers write. Not to say that code that one writes in the style of Learn-You-Haskell or Real-World-Haskell level is bad but there is a wide range of choices of how to write Haskell. Haskell also tends to also have a wide gap between beginner material and advanced material and not a whole lot in between. Some beginners will often come and see advanced discussions about the lens library for instance and will assume that they need to learn the lens library in order to program in Haskell. This just leads to disaster since it's nearly impossible for beginners to decipher the type error messages that come out of it until they grok the type system at a more advanced level.

zeckalpha 13y ago

I enjoy http://book.realworldhaskell.org/ http://book.realworldhaskell.org/

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

chowells 13y ago

Part of the reason intermediate documentation is a bit lacking is the incredible usefulness of the #haskell freenode IRC channel. If you ever have any questions about haskell, feel free to drop by and ask. There's usually at least one person around who'll be willing to take the time to explain it in as much depth as you need.