The Haskell School of Expression
by Paul Hudak · first published 2000
43% recommend53% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Hands-on, approachable first Haskell book that teaches functional programming through multimedia projects like animation, graphics and music; suits beginners and visually or musically inclined learners.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"This book teaches functional programming using Haskell, the most popular purely functional language. The emphasis is on functional programming as a way of thinking and problem solving, using Haskell as a vehicle for expressing solutions. Rather than using conventional examples from mathematics, which are commonly found in other programming language books, this tutorial uses examples drawn from multimedia applications, including graphics, animation, and computer music, thus rewarding the reader with working programs for inherently more interesting applications. The author also teaches how to
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The Haskell School of Expression is a beautiful book that I recommend to anyone that wants to learn Haskell, or to just appreciate functional programming. Also, I motion for a black bar.
on “Paul Hudak, co-creator of Haskell, has died” ↗…cool, but then I realized that I only thought that because it was the latest cool thing to do in programming. Then I thought learning it would be a waste of time. Then I randomly picked up the book "The Haskell School of Expression" by Paul Hudak (one of the designers of Haskell). It is a great introduction to the language. By page 30 it has already introduced the Haskell notions of bindings, functions, let, recursion and complex…
on “John Goerzen on Why You Should Learn Haskell” ↗…Programming book by Paul Hudak. To this day it's still one of my favorites. If you know Haskell and don't want to learn Scala, you might enjoy this as an alternative to the course. The book is called The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Haskell-School-Expression-Programm...
on “Principles of Reactive Programming” ↗FWIW Hudak's Haskell School of Expression was the first programming book I ever read, and probably the reason I do programming today.
on “Paul Hudak, co-creator of Haskell, has died” ↗I'm looking forward to going through this book. Hudak's 'Haskell School of Expression' is one of the books that helped me understand FP, and Haskell in particular. Multimedia applications are not among my current interests, but there were many subtle nuggets in that book that sharpened…
on “Haskell School of Music by Paul Hudak” ↗Hudak's 'Haskell School of Expression' is also full of much Haskell wisdom and spirit.
on “What I Wish I Knew When Learning Haskell” ↗If you enjoy this, consider Hudak's "Haskell School of Expression" book. Very good book, very hands on. http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/hudak/SOE/
on “The Haskell School of Music (2012) [pdf]” ↗Paul Hudak's "The Haskell School of Expression" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Haskell-School-Expression-Programm...), while it doesn't lead to a finished desktop application, does go deeply into its motivating example of building an animation library…
on “Learn Haskell Fast and Hard” ↗Oh no... Paul Hudak's book "The Haskell School of Expression" is probably the most beautiful programming-related book I ever read. It not only got me into Haskell (significantly altering my programming path in life), it was also such a joy to read.
on “The Haskell School of Music – From Signals to Symphonies (2014) [pdf]” ↗Somehow it never comes up in recommendations (I don't know why), but the book that gave me a lot of pleasure in learning Haskell in the beginning was "The Haskell School of Expression" by Paul Hudak. It just "naturally" plays around with the language using very simple concepts, and at the same time showing the simplicity and expressiveness of working with those concepts that would…
on “The Evolution of a Haskell Programmer (2001)” ↗If you’re more inclined to visual and/or musical arts, I’d recommend “Th Haskell School Of Expression” by Paul Hudak. He guides you through the language and the techniques with an eye for concise, expressive code that has good runtime characteristics.
on “Learn Haskell by building a blog generator – a project-oriented Haskell book” ↗I liked The Haskell School of Expression. It was a good first Haskell book. Read it, but also learn by doing, of course.
on “Book on Haskell?” ↗If you like this series of posts, get yourself a copy of The Haskell School of Expression [0]. It covers various multi-media applications of Haskell, including reactive animations. [0]: http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/hudak/SOE/
on “Purely Functional Retrogames” ↗…I needed to start doing interesting things. Since then I haven't found another "canonical book" for another language that I jumped on, instead relying basically on internet. On that line, I loved "The haskell school of expression", though!
on “Practical Common Lisp (2005)” ↗…things like PHP, J2EE and npm. There is only one thing that I regret - it could save me so much time by not reading bullshit on the web if only I could find the right books (like Programming Erlang, Haskell School of Expression or On Lisp) and right courses (like Dan Grossman's and 6.001 2004 - the last course in Scheme) first. There is a huge, qualitative difference between a well-written gems like these and fucking crap some…
on “Ask HN: I've been a programmer for 6 years, and I can't solve basic CS problems” ↗