oracle is obsolete

[...] included a [...] style database in ram

done

and with power of happstack woo weee java is obsolete as well

nginx was pummeled recently in benchmarks vs the warp webserver of haskell fame

It is more attuned to a university student rather than a software professional trying to learn Haskell.

"Learn You a Haskell For Great Good!", I feel is a better first book for the software professional.

But both books are excellent.

Finally, I wish one of the Haskell authors would give a pragmatic description of Category Theory.

Category Theory is a "tough nut" to crack.

Really great on the delivery and the product of the book

Like this book, explaination of concepts are good for me

The book was ok and I read from the beginning till the end. Unfortunately I was not convinced by Haskell's advantages but it could also be, that by preferring other Functional Programming languages, I dif not give it a chance.

the book received looks like used. 2 day shipping is perfect and exactly arived as promised.

Great intro to Haskell. Had a good *early* emphasis on QuickCheck to get people in the mind of testing early

Pros :

1. very well explained with many pictures and examples.

2. based on Haskell 2010(third edition)

Cons :

Learning Haskell is like learning C. Many of the language features are really easy, but some key features are challengeable.

When learning C, most of syntax/semantics except arrays and pointers can be learnt within few days, or even hours. But then, you would have hard time to master pointers, arrays and memory management, etc.

Haskell is not that different. Basic arithmetic, functions, types, pattern matching, guards and even recursions, you could learn in short time. But type classes, lambdas(especially, those reductions) are a bit harder and finally, monads can be very frustrating.

I am generally satisfied with the contents of the book, but his explain about lambdas and monads is a bit sparely. I think, he worried about to introduce mathematics(especially, lambda calculus and category theory). But, the functional languages are different than those imperative languages, in that its root is pure mathematics. They have a small set of simple yet powerful rules, which enables many neat tricks, and many of the tricks actually come from mathematical thinking. When you want to fully understand and to use the functional languages properly, basic theories are somewhat unavoidable. Actually, you don't need to know such as undecidability, model theory or constructive logic, etc. but the basics of (untyped-/typed-)lambda calculus(especially those of reductions, evaluation orders and some of their theorems), category theory(monad is a bit hard here, because it lies in the deep sea of category theory, but functors, for example, can be easily explained) is very helpful for thinking about higher order things and its practical use. Also, you don't need so much effort to learn only the basics of them. Without that they are explained sufficiently, the tutorial is teaching only the subset of Haskell.

Don't get me wrong, this book is the most nearly complete Haskell introductory text out there with the support of Haskell 2010. I wrote the insufficient parts, because it could be the 'complete' introduction to Haskell, when the author didn't avoid the whole theory parts. And since I have read his "Type Theory & Functional Programming", I have an impression that he can present the theories easily understandable. When this part is supplemented, it can be compared to the legendary (and most complete) "C programming : A modern approach" by K.N.King in Haskell world.

So, despite of the cons, I'll give 5 stars, because it is actually much better than other Haskell books.

I actually quite liked this book. It is clear and well written. That being said, this book is much more suited to people who are relative novices at programming. The type of person that would be best suited to purchase this book would be someone that has some experience programming in other languages, but is relitively new to programming as a whole and completely new to functional programming. Anyone more experienced than that might want to look for a more advanced book.

Ich bin noch Anfänger in Haskell und habe mir ein paar Bücher zum Lernen besorgt. Dieses hier liefert meiner Ansicht nach eine gute und umfassende Einführung.

perfect

Ho acquistato questo libro per apprendere a programmare secondo il paradigma funzionale.Le spiegazioni sono molto chiare e ci sono vari esercizi per fare pratica.Spedizione puntuale e servizio ineccepibile.Consigliato!

It's really friendly at the start, really directed to somebody that doesn't know much about programming languages and covers the material well enough with good organization inside each chapter. Plus it explains at the start of each chapter what that chapter is meant to accomplish, which i find really nice.

However it lacks detail in some cases, things that may be evident to the writer but not the reader. Sometimes I find myself checking for information on the internet because the book doesn't address my specific problem or doesn't hold an answer.

It does make use of already made exercices and examples that can be easily downloaded from the book's webpage (it even guides the user on how to download them), however I think that the way it implements that system in the book could be better. There are times when it is not clear wether to create a new file to work on or just use one from the downloaded examples. When it is clear, there is no previous warning to open an example file, it just assumes that you have it open or know what to do.

All things considered it is a good book, enjoyed reading it .