The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia | 
|  | | | Title: | The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia | | Author: | Paul Hudak | | Publisher: | Cambridge University Press | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | June, 2000 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0521644089 / 9780521644082 | | List Price: | $43.00 | | You Save: | $10.25 | | Amazon Price: | $32.75 | |
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Product Description
Functional programming is a style of programming that emphasizes the use of functions (in contrast to object-oriented programming, which emphasizes the use of objects). It has become popular in recent years because of its simplicity, conciseness, and clarity. This book teaches functional programming as a way of thinking and problem solving, using Haskell, the most popular purely functional language. Rather than using the conventional (boring) mathematical examples commonly found in other programming language textbooks, the author uses examples drawn from multimedia applications, including graphics, animation, and computer music, thus rewarding the reader with working programs for inherently more interesting applications. Aimed at both beginning and advanced programmers, this tutorial begins with a gentle introduction to functional programming and moves rapidly on to more advanced topics. Details about progamming in Haskell are presented in boxes throughout the text so they can be easily found and referred to.
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Customer Reviews:
• If You Like Programming ... 01 March, 2006
in general, and if you don't know Haskell, OCaML, ML, or F#, then you really should buy this book and work through it.
A generation ago, Abelson and Sussman wrote "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs," which brought world-shaping clarity to programming in the form of a generic, functional approach. In the time since then, "types" and "lazy evaluation" have fundamentally improved that overall approach, and Haskell is the rightful successor to Scheme as the best-of-breed of functional programming languages. That said, types and lazy evaluation are somewhat tricky to learn, and this book offers a fun and easy way to do it.
The software needed to run the samples in the book is free and works on Windows platforms (and possibly some others).
Buy it, work through every word of it, you won't regret it :)
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3EFHJ9BGBJ8L2
• Odd 07 April, 2008
I admit, I did not read the book very much. I looked through it and the format of everything was really weird. The code snippets used characters one cannot type in what seemed to me to be a variable width font. It bothered me for some reason.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1E5WFGJL2D1J8
• Great Idea, Execution Could Use Help 04 April, 2008
Granted I am new to Haskell and to some degree functional programming. I thought this book would be really cool, pretty much an ideal book on a subject matter that I am very interested in. The text is definitely easy to follow for the most part, but WHY, WHY use a 'Times new roman' type font for the code samples? The code samples are basically in the same font as the text only in italics, making it hard to figure out what is supposed to be whitespace, which I find a pretty strange decision for a textbook on a language where layout matters...
- Reviewed by customer ID: AMG7LXU5I8MKG
• Not A Good Place To Start 28 December, 2008
I have to agree with a variety of reviewers who describe this book as an excellent read but not a good place to learn Haskell. What this book will do is give the reader an excellent understanding of functional programming, but descriptions of nitty gritty language details are lacking. I feel that were it not the case that I already hold some familiarity with standard ML (a language that looks and feels very similar to Haskell) I would be completely lost for lack of rigorous discourse on pattern matching, type inference and higher order functions. The author seems to assume that the reader holds specific prior knowledge on a variety of topics which I think would be cumbersome to a reader without prior functional programming exposure (specifically languages loosely describable as "in the ML family").
All that being said, I do find the book a delightful read. So long as a potential reader use this as supplemental material rather than foundational material the text worth a look. Indeed the criticism that I and others have leveled assumes a specific intent on the part of the author that may not be what the author had in mind. This book is an excellent high level look at how one versed in imperative or object oriented programming can shift their thinking into solving problems with functional mechanisms.
I personally see the need for learning functional programming as a response to more and more languages incorporating functional paradigms into their tool set, particularly the high level scripting languages that have jumped in popularity of late. Even the STL and auxiliary libraries of C++ have an interesting emphasis on higher order functions and the composition thereof that makes a foundation in functional programming worth looking into. This book is an excellent place to look into how functional programming is applied, but I recommend looking elsewhere for details specific to the Haskell programming language.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A19S59NMLYFNJP
• Good Book. 05 June, 2007
This is a good book... However, I wish I hadn't bought it. It seems to focus too much on geometry and multimedia, which is not that interesting to me. (Yes, I knew that when I bought the book).
Anyway, my problem with it is that it seems more suited to someone who'll learn in a "linear" way, going through all chapters (maybe because functions defined in previous chapters are used in the others). I'd rather get a book with self-contained chapters (for example, I've learned Lisp with Peter Seibel's "Practical Common Lisp", and I jumped around, reading chapters as I felt like, or as I needed them). But it's great if you don't mind having to go through all of it.
Maybe it's me, I don't know. I just didn't really like it.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1V0MM7VDPMPU8
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