Product Description

Haskell is one of the leading languages for teaching functional programming, enabling students to write simpler and cleaner code, and to learn how to structure and reason about programs. This introduction is ideal for beginners: it requires no previous programming experience and all concepts are explained from first principles via carefully chosen examples. Each chapter includes exercises that range from the straightforward to extended projects, plus suggestions for further reading on more advanced topics. The author is a leading Haskell researcher and instructor, well-known for his teaching skills. The presentation is clear and simple, and benefits from having been refined and class-tested over several years. The result is a text that can be used with courses, or for self-learning. Features include freely accessible Powerpoint slides for each chapter, solutions to exercises and examination questions (with solutions) available to instructors, and a downloadable code that’s fully compliant with the latest Haskell release.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #119502 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 184 pages

Review
"The best introduction to Haskell available. There are many paths towards becoming comfortable and competent with the language but I think studying this book is the quickest path. I urge readers of this magazine to recommend Programming in Haskell to anyone who has been thinking about learning the language. Duncan Coutts, Monad Reader

'Two groups of people must consider this book. The first is professors interested in rapidly introducing students to fundamental concepts in functional programming. This book, supplemented with online resources and professorial guidance could easily serve as the textbook for a semester-long course on functional programming. The second group is programmers interested in surveying the functional paradigm as quickly as possible.' Journal of Functional Programming

About the Author
Graham Hutton has worked in four of the leading centres for research and teaching on functional programming, He has more than fifteen years of experience in functional programming research, during which time he has published more than thirty research articles, chaired the Haskell Workshop and edited a special issue on Haskell of the Journal of Functional Programming. He also has more than ten years experience in teaching Haskell, and in promoting the use of functional programming in the curriculum.

Customer Reviews

It might be ok if you're a student, but...
of little use if you're a professional, like me, who wants to really get down to using the language. There are several problems with the book:

1. It mixes up mathematical notation with code. If I'm reading code then I want to see code. It's irritating and occassionally confusing. I haven't seen any other books do this, and there's a good reason for it.
2. There is not a single example of anything useful! Not how to open a file, or write to a file, for instance.
3. What is there is a duplication of existing libraries. You get to build a parser when there is already the famous Parsec library out there. It would be MUCH more useful to have done this using Parsec. You'll also recreate several standard (Prelude) functions, though the author never makes it clear when this is happening. Other books (The Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and Programming, for example) do not do this and are much better for it.
4. The book does not contain the answers to the exercises. You can only get the answers from Cambridge University Press if you are an instructor of a course. So unless you are a student, you will never see the answers. Perhaps your code will compile. Perhaps it will work. But you'll never get the invaluable insight of seeing a pro's coded answer. Rubbish! Cambridge Press just gave me a big fat "No" when I asked for the answers, and didn't bother to reply to my request for justification, even though I paid the same amount as any student.

All in all, one of the poorest programming books I've come across. If you're a student, then you've been told to buy it because it's on your course. Otherwise, pick a different book, any other book. Real World Haskell looks a lot, lot better (or the Haskell Road...)

Excellent Introduction to Haskell
The material is very well written, concise and easy to understand. I'd recommend this text to anyone starting out with Haskell. The only issue being that this book is really only an introduction. It leaves the reader with a great idea about the basic concepts of Haskell, but it doesn't elaborate on real world Haskell; programming with effects, concurrency, networking etc.

For beginners
I bought this book since it was recommended by the course instructor (the course was not a basic intro course, lecture 2 delved straight into monads, and lecture 3 was higher order monads.) I myself have some prior experience with Standard ML, and I don't feel like a stranger to functional programming in general. The result was that I ended up blowing through nearly half the book in one sitting (a few hours.)

While it does explain some of the syntactical oddities of Haskell I haven't seen elsewhere (guards, list comprehensions, etc), these are fairly simple things. Halfway through, he starts with a parser example (using monads), but since he doesn't really explain the why and how for the rather strained construction, I feel the point is somewhat lost. Sadly, monads aren't really delved into.

If you have any basic knowledge of functional programming (esp of the SML style), I'd recommend you move along to a move advanced book. But for the simple stuff, the author explains everything well.