Beginning Haskell: A Project-Based Approach 1st edition by Serrano Mena, Alejandro (2014) Paperback

by Alejandro Serrano Mena

Beginning Haskell provides a broad-based introduction to the Haskell language, its libraries and environment, and to the functional programming paradigm that is fast growing in importance in the software industry. The book takes a project-based approach to learning the language that is unified around the building of a web-based storefront. Excellent coverage is given to the Haskell ecosystem and supporting tools. These include the Cabal build tool for managing projects and modules, the HUnit and QuickCheck tools for software testing, the Scotty framework for developing web applications, Persistent and Esqueleto for database access, and also parallel and distributed programming libraries. Functional programming is gathering momentum, allowing programmers to express themselves in a more concise way, reducing boilerplate and increasing the safety of code. Indeed, mainstream languages such as C# and Java are adopting features from functional programming, and from languages implementing that paradigm. Haskell is an elegant and noise-free pure functional language with a long history, having a huge number of library contributors and an active community. This makes Haskell the best tool for both learning and applying functional programming, and Beginning Haskell the perfect book to show off the language and what it can do. Beginning Haskell is for programmers new to functional programming, who want to learn this new paradigm and how it can improve the quality of their code. Beginning Haskell is also a great choice for functional programmers wanting to get a taste of the Haskell ecosystem and its unique features, or who wish to learn about advanced type system features and patterns.

Genres: Programming

Paperback

First published January 22, 2014

Reviews

[Edward · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book does touch upon many haskell libraries: conduit, lens, database access, even cloud haskell. If one uses it as a reference to when to use what with examples, then the book could be quite useful. But other than that, there's a lot left to be desired. For example, many code snippets are far from idiomatic; hlint can easily pick them apart.

Not recommended.

[Jan Kroken · Rating 5 out of 5]

was good back when I read it, but probably too out of date now

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts off well by gets a bit lost in itself halfway through. Could use some more practical examples.
Not sure what happened to the "project" professed on the cover? Be aware there are quite a lot of errors. However, on the bright side, the libraries and style used are much more up to date than the now dated Real World Haskell.

Still yearning for a much more pragmatic approach to this language!

[Seamus Brady]

Excellent introduction to Haskell