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A key problem that I only realized after having recently returned to Haskell after a long absence is that our expectations about learning new programming langua

A key problem that I only realized after having recently returned to Haskell after a long absence is that our expectations about learning new programming languages and/or platforms set us up for failure. For example, I generally eat new programming languages for breakfast (or bedtime reading, really). But I've noticed that Haskell isn't like picking up the PL flavor-of-the-week. Instead, it feels much more like learning a new area of mathematics. It's common with a novel area of math to just have to bang your head on it for a while. If you hang on through that phase, the cognitive switch flips and then you wonder how it was ever difficult. So it goes with a language that feels much closer to math reified, and for which most of the patterns we're used to from our imperative platform experiences just don't apply. One good piece of advice I've seen a few places is to work through the U. Penn CIS 194 lectures and homeworks[1]. The lecture notes refer to other good resources for reading, including chapters of http://learnyouahaskell.com/ http://learnyouahaskell.com/ and more. But the real winner is just taking the time to just work through the homework problems. It's annoying at times. "Hey, (don't/shouldn't?) I know this stuff already?" But you'll probably get stuck at places, and those places pinpoint precisely the missing foundation blocks you'll need to reason successfully about your Haskell programs. Stick it out, but don't be afraid to search the web for help if you get too stuck. We self-taught types don't get office hours to keep us pointed in the right direction. [1] This term in particular gets referenced: http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cis194/spring13/lectures.html http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cis194/spring13/lectures.html

rjblackman 12y ago
further to this "bitemyapp" has a very good starting point for haskell newcomers https://github.com/bitemyapp/learnhaskell https://github.com/bitemyapp/learnhaskell
- krylon 12y ago
  Hehe, I just took a look and found this very encouraging statement: "Slow learners are often the most thorough learners, this is something to celebrate!" That's it, I'm going to give Haskell another try!
krylon 12y ago
Thanks for the advice! I agree on the math part (which is the biggest problem for me, since I do not exactly have a strong math background). Haskell requires one to think in very different ways from C or similar languages (compared to the difference to Haskell, the structured (C) vs. OO (say, Python or Ruby) difference seems negligible. If one already knows C++, learning the basics of Java is trivial (the main problem becomes learning about the standard library plus third party libraries). If one knows C/C++ and a Unix shell, learning Perl is at least manageable (is that how you spell that word?). Lisp fans like to refer to their language of choice as something akin to Alien technology, but again, compared to Haskell, Lisp feels much more "terrestrial" (Common Lisp and Emacs Lisp, at least, my knowledge of Scheme is rather limited). Now that I think about it, the real problem for me seems to be monads. Without having /some/ kind of side effects, you cannot write an even remotely useful program, and I never really got them. I once had the feeling I was really close, but then the toy program I was working on blew up in my face, thereby telling me I had probably not been as close as I had thought. Another thing about Haskell (and - as far as I can tell, OCaml) that is /very/ different from the mainstream crowd of languages is the type system. I have a feeling that an idiomatic Haskell program would make far heavier use of the type system to model your problem than even extreme examples of object-oriented design (and without becoming as confusing as the more class-hierarchy-happy OO programs I have seen). (Let me stress that I really adore Haskell's type system. If there was a conventional structured programming language with a type system like Haskell's, I would probably be all over it, as would many other programmers, I guess. I have wondered on occasion if you could have one without the other (immutability and such).) Maybe I'll retcon learning Haskell on my list of New Year's resolutions. In all fairness, understanding Lisp took me about three to four years of looking at it once or twice a year, and understanding how pointers work in C also took me a lot longer than I am comfortable admitting. ;-) I can be very persistent if I really want to know something.
- progman 12y ago
  > Now that I think about it, the real problem for me seems to be monads. A very good quick explanation of Monads is given in the first long answer (number 245) at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28139259/why-do-we-need-monads http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28139259/why-do-we-need-m... Comprehensive introduction: https://wiki.haskell.org/All_About_Monads https://wiki.haskell.org/All_About_Monads

rjblackman 12y ago

further to this "bitemyapp" has a very good starting point for haskell newcomers https://github.com/bitemyapp/learnhaskell https://github.com/bitemyapp/learnhaskell

krylon 12y ago
Hehe, I just took a look and found this very encouraging statement: "Slow learners are often the most thorough learners, this is something to celebrate!" That's it, I'm going to give Haskell another try!

krylon 12y ago

Thanks for the advice! I agree on the math part (which is the biggest problem for me, since I do not exactly have a strong math background). Haskell requires one to think in very different ways from C or similar languages (compared to the difference to Haskell, the structured (C) vs. OO (say, Python or Ruby) difference seems negligible. If one already knows C++, learning the basics of Java is trivial (the main problem becomes learning about the standard library plus third party libraries). If one knows C/C++ and a Unix shell, learning Perl is at least manageable (is that how you spell that word?). Lisp fans like to refer to their language of choice as something akin to Alien technology, but again, compared to Haskell, Lisp feels much more "terrestrial" (Common Lisp and Emacs Lisp, at least, my knowledge of Scheme is rather limited). Now that I think about it, the real problem for me seems to be monads. Without having /some/ kind of side effects, you cannot write an even remotely useful program, and I never really got them. I once had the feeling I was really close, but then the toy program I was working on blew up in my face, thereby telling me I had probably not been as close as I had thought. Another thing about Haskell (and - as far as I can tell, OCaml) that is /very/ different from the mainstream crowd of languages is the type system. I have a feeling that an idiomatic Haskell program would make far heavier use of the type system to model your problem than even extreme examples of object-oriented design (and without becoming as confusing as the more class-hierarchy-happy OO programs I have seen). (Let me stress that I really adore Haskell's type system. If there was a conventional structured programming language with a type system like Haskell's, I would probably be all over it, as would many other programmers, I guess. I have wondered on occasion if you could have one without the other (immutability and such).) Maybe I'll retcon learning Haskell on my list of New Year's resolutions. In all fairness, understanding Lisp took me about three to four years of looking at it once or twice a year, and understanding how pointers work in C also took me a lot longer than I am comfortable admitting. ;-) I can be very persistent if I really want to know something.

progman 12y ago
> Now that I think about it, the real problem for me seems to be monads. A very good quick explanation of Monads is given in the first long answer (number 245) at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28139259/why-do-we-need-monads http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28139259/why-do-we-need-m... Comprehensive introduction: https://wiki.haskell.org/All_About_Monads https://wiki.haskell.org/All_About_Monads