[Haskell & FP in Education] Welcome and introductions

[Michael Sperber]

By way of introduction:

I'm CEO of a small software company in Southern Germany, which also
offers training in functional programming and software architecture.

I am the founder of the DeinProgramm educational initiative (alas, in
German):

http://www.deinprogramm.de/

This is closely aligned with PLT's Program by Design / How to Design
Program, and comes with its own textbook.  The pedagogy of these
projects is based on the idea of *design recipes* - explicit
instructions for building programs starting with a systematic data
analysis.

DrRacket also ships with DeinProgramm-specific teaching languages.

My experience has been that Program by Design is a hugely successful
intro to programming/algebra/FPfor a wide variety of learners.  In
particular, having programming languages tailored for beginners is
crucial.  DrRacket has a huge headway here, and most teachers are
well-advised to make use of it instead of trying to devise their own
pedagogy or go with their own favorite language.

Consequently, I don't think Haskell, as-is, is an appropriate language
for teaching beginners.  However, as the design recipes are very much
types-based, they also apply to Haskell, and Haskell is a great second
language to go to from Program by Design.  (When we do 3-day
professional Haskell training, we do 2 days of Program by Design and one
day of Haskell - we usually get to monads.)

-- 
Regards,
Mike