LOGIN | REGISTER NOW | SUBSCRIBE
 

Windows & .NET Watch: Haskell: It’s like Klingon, but with math!


By Larry O'Brien
Email    print   
April 15, 2009 —  (Page 1 of 2)
“I might as well be looking at Klingon script,” said a colleague when we were discussing Haskell, the much-admired programming language. Reading Haskell requires more than a casual acquaintance with the language, due to a programming idiom that emphasizes dense (or, if you prefer, concise) expressions, as well as Haskell's syntax, which is not part of the ubiquitous C language family. (“What? The return type is not the first thing in a function declaration?”)

“Real World Haskell,” which recently won a Jolt Award as the year’s best technical book, does an excellent job orienting the newcomer not only to Haskell’s syntax, but also to the language’s selling propositions, which are a strong type system and the ability to program without side effects in the functional style. Like Smalltalk and LISP, it is a language that will almost certainly broaden your approach to solving problems even if you do not have the chance to program in the language professionally. (On the other hand, I’ve heard it claimed that experts in the non-mainstream languages have a relatively easy time navigating between jobs in their more specialized communities.)

The book, by Bryan O’Sullivan, John Goerzen and Don Stewart, jumps right into Haskell’s type system. It correctly states that one reason why type systems are so talked about is that a type system “deeply colors the way we think and write code in that language.” There is, in my opinion, no hard-and-fast “correct” type system, and that is one reason why I don’t feel hypocritical recommending learning Haskell just a few columns after recommending learning Python, whose “duck typing” philosophy is pretty much antithetical to Haskell’s.

The short version of how these philosophies clash is whether a mismatch (say, passing an integer to a function that expects to manipulate a distinct “time” object) is detected at compile time or at runtime. I think there’s more to the debate than that, and the real question is whether explicitly answering “What have we here?” and “What sort of thing are we going to produce?” is a central, or a secondary, part of problem solving. I think there’s a good case to be made that it’s central.


Related Search Term(s): Haskell

Pages 1 2 


Share this link: http://sdt.bz/33399
 
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Taking enterprise architecture to the business side
Startup Corso is bringing out a cloud-based planning platform that ties into business plans
Appcelerator Acquires Cocoafish to Add Instant Mobile Cloud Capabilities to its Industry Leading Titanium Platform
Appcelerator Offers Messaging, Social, Location and Storage Mobile Cloud Services to All Mobile App Publishers
Zeichick’s Take: Radio moves from analog waveforms to digital packets
Streaming radio highlights the need for streaming applications to be designed to take up as little bandwidth as possible
ComponentOne Releases a Collection of 40+ UI Widgets Powered by HTML5 and jQuery
ComponentOne has announced the 2012 release of Wijmo: a kit of UI widgets for HTML5 and jQuery development
Digg!  Digg
Reddit  Reddit
Slashdot  Slashdot
Share on facebook  Facebook
Share on Twitter  Twitter



Comments


04/17/2009 01:04:55 AM EST

I like Real World Haskell as well, but for people starting out with Haskell, I think "Learn You A Haskell" is a much better introduction to the fundamental concepts of the language: http://learnyouahaskell.com/

United StatesPaul Barry


04/17/2009 11:17:19 AM EST

This book is nice ~but let's no forget that haskell has some amazingly marvellous tutorials ( cf. http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Learning_Haskell & http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell ) that could complement any journey towards learning it. .\

United Statessteez


Add comment


Name*
Email*  
Country     


  • Comment
Loading




close
NEXT ARTICLE
LLVM gains Libc++, new version of Glasgow Haskell Compiler
Standard C++ library gets updates ahead of C++'s own updates Read More...
 
 
 
 
News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>


   

 
 

Download Current Issue
FEBRUARY 2012 PDF ISSUE

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Want to subscribe?


 
blogs tab
Are you at risk for burnout?
Burnout is a severe problem and it can strike at any time. Here's how to tell if you are nearing the edge.
02/09/2012 02:16 PM EST

Agility, mom, and apple pie
If we're to evaluate the state-of-the-art in software development, we should start with the values espoused in the Agile Manifesto.
02/07/2012 11:57 AM EST

RIM woos developers with free tablet
How do you get more apps ported to the BlackBerry PlayBook? By giving every developer a free tablet, of course!
02/04/2012 01:57 PM EST

GitHire: Use Headhunters to Find Your Perfect Programmer
Are you a hiring manager tired of scouring the job boards? Check out this new service that will find 5 people interested in your jobs.
02/03/2012 12:17 PM EST

Facebook claims hacker cred
Facebook's SEC S-1 filing form includes a short essay on the Hacker Way by Mark Zuckerberg himself.
02/02/2012 08:26 AM EST

Ryan Dahl steps down
Ryan Dahl, creator of Node.js, steps back from his position as gatekeeper for the project.
02/01/2012 04:58 PM EST

 
Events calendar tab
Cloud Connect
2/13/2012 to 2/16/2012
Santa Clara
TechWeb

SPTechCon: The SharePoint Technology Conf.
2/26/2012 to 2/29/2012
San Francisco
BZ Media

RSA Conf.
2/27/2012 to 3/2/2012
San Francisco
RSA

IBM Pulse Conf.
3/4/2012 to 3/7/2012
Las Vegas
IBM Tivoli

Game Developer Conf.
3/5/2012 to 3/9/2012
San Francisco
TechWeb