Product Description

After the success of the first edition of Introduction to Functional Programming, the authors have thoroughly updated and revised this bestselling title. This book is unusual amongst books on functional programming in that it is primarily directed towards the concepts of functional programming, rather than their realization in a specific programming language. The book clearly expounds the construction of functional programs as a process of mathematical calculation, but the mathematics is restricted to that relevant to the actual construction of programs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #332139 in Books
• Published on: 1998
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

From the Back Cover
After the success of the first edition, Introduction to Functional Programming using Haskell has been thoroughly updated and revised to provide a complete grounding in the principles and techniques of programming with functions. The second edition uses the popular language Haskell to express functional programs. There are new chapters on program optimisation, abstract datatypes in a functional setting, and programming in a monadic style. There are complete new case studies, and many new exercises. As in the first edition, there is an emphasis on the fundamental techniques for reasoning about functional programs, and for deriving them systematically from their specifications. The book is self-contained, assuming no prior knowledge of programming and is suitable as an introductory undergraduate text for first- or second-year students.

Customer Reviews

Excellent book for intermediate-level functional programming
I have just finished reading the entire book, and am very happy with it. I was familiar with Haskell before reading it and think this is not a good introduction to the language.
This book teaches you medium/advanced haskell (and functional programming in general). Do not buy it if you want to learn the language or f.p. from scrach. You must absolutely buy it if you've learnt the basics and which to move forward.

Easy to find what you need
I am not a person who reads entire books. However, when I need to find something specific, I can find it very easily.

To counter one of the other reviews, Haskell is not pointless! Quirky, maybe, significantly different to imperative programming, certainly, but it gives you another way of looking at things. Can you write a one-line sorting algorithm in C?

Functional Programming is all about paradigm shift - just as there was from, say, Assembler to Fortran. Being able to specify programs more elegantly, as you can in Functional languages, makes for more readable, manageable code ~ cheaper to maintain.

Try it, you might like it!

(Also, I am a student at the department where Bird teaches, I can say that this book is essential for getting through problem sheets!)

The only way to acquaint yourself with haskell
Bird gives a clear and insightful introduction into the ideas and theory behind funtional programming using Haskell. For anyone interested in the future of higher level computer programming, this book is a must-buy.