Questions
I m looking for some eBooks that will assist in my learning of functional programming. I haven t yet decided which language I will go with, but I ve noticed a fair amount of bias towards LISP, Haskell and F# amongst the community on StackOverflow. As yet, I m unsure which direction I will take, but can anyone recommend any particular eBooks on the subject? In addition, if anyone could present a compelling argument for which functional language would be the most interesting to pursue, I would be most interested to hear your opinion.
I m particularly interested in eBooks because I managed to score myself a Sony eBook Reader for Christmas and I m looking to load it up with useful material for my never-ending quest to become a better programmer.
Answers
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1012573/getting-started-with-haskell
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1012573/getting-started-with-haskell
Reasons in favor of Haskell:
Lisp is also a good choice. Reasons in favor of a Lisp variant:
- Historically the first functional programming language (or the first huge one).
- The worldview "everything is a list" is very minimalist, simple, and beautiful.
http://www.schemers.org/
http://www.schemers.org/
I have not used OCaml or Ruby, but some of my friends swear by them, though one could argue how functional they are. On the other hand, their "multi-paradigm" nature makes them very convenient in practice.
To conclude, I suggest you choose a language following Alan Perlis s advice: "A language that doesn t affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing." Lisp and Haskell both changed my world. I hope that no matter what language you choose, it changes your world.
Source
License : cc by-sa 3.0
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/432295/does-anyone-have-any-recommendations-for-starting-out-in-functional-programming
Related
