Dear Haskellers, I have been trying my best to read about Haskell from the various tutorials available on the internet and blogs. I havent been following YAHT properly, so its always been learning from 'bits and pieces' scattered around.
For most languages (like C/C++/Ruby/Python), the above approach has helped me. But for Haskell, it is failing. I like learning by comparison with other similar languages. This approach worked for me when I tried learning Python+Perl together. The nicer syntax and easier object-orientedness made me leave Perl behind and pursue Python. I also tried it for Haskell (Lisp+OCaml+Haskell together). The next step I usually take in learning a language is, not to go by the topics found in textbooks, but by taking real world examples and then blindly try to solve it using that language as a tool. For e.g, I tried writing a terminal GTalk client for Python when I was learning it, and learnt so many features that way. I used to call this 'learning by need', and it worked, to the extent that I never knew how to take 'input' from the user, but knew how to write Objects in Python! (Since I never used input in that example :) I didnt want to repeat that mistake, so I made sure I would learn IO in Haskell, which initially turned out to be a disaster, due to the 'Moands' which sounded like 'Go Mads' to me. Then, I set out to learn Monads + Category Theory from a Math perspective. And since I haven't been introduced to abstract math (like Groups, etc.), I found this a little difficult. However I tried my best to understand the tiniest bit and waited for the tiniest spark that would enlighten me. It didn't work out. --snip-- Okay, so you might be wondering as to whats the whole point of this mail? Well, I am almost on the verge of giving up on something I really like to learn, just because I didn't go in the right order! So, I requested my institute to buy Dr. Graham Hutton's book. I would be getting hold of that quite soon, and am willing to start from the beginning. Meanwhile, could anyone suggest if there was anything wrong in my approach to learning Haskell/the other languages? I agree that the learning methodology is something personal and I have to find out what best suits me, but I would like to hear something from you, Haskellers, too. I have no need to hurry anything at this point of time. But after being introduced to the tiniest bit of Haskell, and after seeing such a large and active community here, and #haskell, I had the plan of conducting a Haskell Workshop, in our department (sometime in Feb next year, the dates have not been finalized). I just hope that I should be able to reach a substantial amount of familiarity with Haskell by that time! Sorry for the long mail, and pardon me if it was too boring. I just put my thoughts on <strike>paper</strike> a mail :) I did have a couple of ambitious projects in my mind when to help me learn Haskell. They were: 1. An online judge system (Like http://spoj.pl). I had already done one for contests that were held during our Technical festival here, using php. The ideas are laid out. All I had to focus on was learning Haskell. 2. A solver for the Peg-Solitaire. This was more of an academic interest. I have seen Richard Bird's presentation on 'How to write a functional pearl, with an example' and was quite impressed by it. But the actual modelling might be slightly tricky here, and I am yet to start off with it. Many thanks for your patience, Cheers, -- ~Vimal IIT Madras RLE :) encode = map (length &&& head) . group decode = concatMap (uncurry replicate) _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
