Package: wnpp Severity: wishlist * Package name : helium Version : 1.6 Upstream Author : The Helium team (http://www.cs.uu.nl/helium/contact.html) * URL : http://www.cs.uu.nl/helium/index.html * License : Helium is distributed under the GNU General Public License. Description : functional PL and a compiler designed especially for learning Haskell
Helium is a functional programming language and a compiler designed especially for learning Haskell. It is being developed at the Software Technology group of the Institute of Information and Computing Sciences of Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Quality of the error messages has been the main concern both in the choice of the language features and in the implementation of the compiler. Our goal is to let students (or anyone) learn functional programming more quickly and with more fun. Note: Helium does not support type classes yet. For that reason it is incompatible with Haskell text books. The language is a subset of the Haskell language. The essential features we want to teach are all there: algebraic data types, pattern matching, higher-order functions, laziness and polymorphism. The most notable difference with Haskell is the absence of overloading, which is a mixed blessing. Without overloading many function types are simpler and thus more specific type errors can be given. -- Regards, EddyP ============================================= "Imagination is more important than knowledge" A.Einstein