Hari's Corner

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Something about Haskell I wanted to share

Filed under: Software and Technology by Hari
Posted on Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 21:46 IST (last updated: Thu, Nov 3, 2011 @ 14:56 IST)

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I made a post about Haskell on this website:

I am a newbie to Haskell myself, so my perspective is purely from a beginner point of view, but within three days I have picked up the most basic concepts and feel fairly comfortable with the functional style. At least, mentally I am now ready for pattern matching, recursion and other fundamental concepts of functional programming as opposed to imperative, iterative approach to programming. Will I be able to write a full-fledged GUI within a week or even a month? I doubt it. But just the process of learning itself is rewarding.

My suggestions would be to learn the bare minimum you require to write simple 'hello world' type programs (with slowly increasing complexity) and then go on from there. Trying to digest everything at once can be very frustrating, as can be the task of trying to write a "real" application. Stop reading tutorials. Yes, this goes against the grain, but really tutorials tend to either over-simplify some things or lead to confusion. The "Learn you a Haskell" tutorial is an exception, but even there, don't try to approach all the concepts head on.

If I might make a small comparison. Learning another imperative programming language is like getting to understand a different accent/dialect in English if you are already familiar with English.

Learning Haskell is like learning German. The script looks mostly the same, but it's a whole different thing altogether. If after learning for a few weeks, you can speak a few words in German and communicate basic ideas, you're already progressing well. Haskell is somewhat similar.

Yes, well, learning Haskell can be compared to learning German if you only know the different dialects/variants of English. The alphabet is mostly the same, but it is just not English!

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