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The Haskell School of Expression: Learning Functional Programming through Multimedia | 
 enlarge | Author: Paul Hudak
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $113.00
Buy New: $94.48
You Save: $18.52 (16%)
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Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 2287366
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 0
Pages: 382
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 7 x 0.9
ISBN: 0521643384
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.114
EAN: 9780521643382
ASIN: 0521643384
Publication Date: January 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: All orders ship same business day via standard shipping (USPS Media Mail) if received by 1 PM CST.
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Product Description
Functional programming is a style of programming that emphasizes the use of functions (in contrast to object-oriented programming, which emphasizes the use of objects). It has become popular in recent years because of its simplicity, conciseness, and clarity. This book teaches functional programming as a way of thinking and problem solving, using Haskell, the most popular purely functional language. Rather than using the conventional (boring) mathematical examples commonly found in other programming language textbooks, the author uses examples drawn from multimedia applications, including graphics, animation, and computer music, thus rewarding the reader with working programs for inherently more interesting applications. Aimed at both beginning and advanced programmers, this tutorial begins with a gentle introduction to functional programming and moves rapidly on to more advanced topics. Details about progamming in Haskell are presented in boxes throughout the text so they can be easily found and referred to.
Book Description
Functional programming is a style of programming that emphasizes the use of functions (in contrast to object-oriented programming, which emphasizes the use of objects). It has become popular in recent years because of its simplicity, conciseness, and clarity. This textbook, aimed at beginning and advanced programmers, teaches functional programming as a way of thinking and problem solving, using Haskell, the most popular purely functional language. Rather than using the conventional (boring) mathematical examples commonly found in other programming language textbooks, this text uses examples drawn from multimedia applications, including graphics, animation, and computer music, thus rewarding the student with working programs for inherently more interesting applications.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Odd April 7, 2008
Max Lynch (Wisconsin)
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
I admit, I did not read the book very much. I looked through it and the format of everything was really weird. The code snippets used characters one cannot type in what seemed to me to be a variable width font. It bothered me for some reason.
Great idea, execution could use help April 4, 2008
JH
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Granted I am new to Haskell and to some degree functional programming. I thought this book would be really cool, pretty much an ideal book on a subject matter that I am very interested in. The text is definitely easy to follow for the most part, but WHY, WHY use a 'Times new roman' type font for the code samples? The code samples are basically in the same font as the text only in italics, making it hard to figure out what is supposed to be whitespace, which I find a pretty strange decision for a textbook on a language where layout matters...
Good book. June 5, 2007
W. Ghost (Brazil)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a good book... However, I wish I hadn't bought it. It seems to focus too much on geometry and multimedia, which is not that interesting to me. (Yes, I knew that when I bought the book). br / br /Anyway, my problem with it is that it seems more suited to someone who'll learn in a "linear" way, going through all chapters (maybe because functions defined in previous chapters are used in the others). I'd rather get a book with self-contained chapters (for example, I've learned Lisp with Peter Seibel's "Practical Common Lisp", and I jumped around, reading chapters as I felt like, or as I needed them). But it's great if you don't mind having to go through all of it. br /Maybe it's me, I don't know. I just didn't really like it. br / br /
 If you like programming ... March 1, 2006
Brian Beckman (Renton, WA USA)
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
in general, and if you don't know Haskell, OCaML, ML, or F#, then you really should buy this book and work through it. br / br /A generation ago, Abelson and Sussman wrote "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs," which brought world-shaping clarity to programming in the form of a generic, functional approach. In the time since then, "types" and "lazy evaluation" have fundamentally improved that overall approach, and Haskell is the rightful successor to Scheme as the best-of-breed of functional programming languages. That said, types and lazy evaluation are somewhat tricky to learn, and this book offers a fun and easy way to do it. br / br /The software needed to run the samples in the book is free and works on Windows platforms (and possibly some others). br / br /Buy it, work through every word of it, you won't regret it :)
Inspires investigation of Haskell using great examples November 21, 2005
calvinnme (Fredericksburg, Va)
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
C, Java, Pascal, Ada, and so on, are all imperative languages. They are "imperative" in the sense that they consist of a sequence of commands, which are executed strictly one after the other. Haskell is a functional language. A functional program is a single expression, which is executed by evaluating the expression. Anyone who has used a spreadsheet has experience of functional programming. In a spreadsheet, one specifies the value of each cell in terms of the values of other cells. The focus is on what is to be computed, not how it should be computed. br /This book is a unique attempt to teach the reader the Haskell programming language by demonstrating how to write programs that perform interesting tasks such as animation, graphics, robot control, and functional music composition. The book succeeds at introducing the reader to the Haskell language and the idea of functional programming, and the book is a fascinating read with unique projects performed in the Haskell language. This is particularly true if you are interested in multimedia programming. However, intermediate features of the language are brushed over. If you are already familiar with Haskell, this book will teach you interesting ways to look at functional programming and give you some ideas for some interesting projects. If you are new to Haskell, you are going to find yourself somewhat confused when you get to the more advanced material. I therefore recommend that you read this book along with "Haskell:The Craft of Functional Programming" by Thompson. That book is not nearly as interesting as this book, but it fills in all of the intermediate details that are missing in a very detailed manner.
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