[Haskell-beginners] Is haskell a good choice for someone, who never programmed before?

[edgar klerks]

Hi Marc and Daniel,

On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 10:50 PM, Daniel Fischer <daniel.is.fischer at web.de>wrote:

> On Friday 02 July 2010 22:36:46, edgar klerks wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I have a question. A friend of mine wants to learn a programming
> > language, because we work together. He studied economics and is busy in
> > the financial sector. I understood Haskell is used there pretty much, so
> > he got interested in it. But is haskell a good language for someone, who
> > never even tried a language like basic?
>
> Actually, the rumour goes that Haskell is easier to learn if your brain
> hasn't been conditioned by years of imperative programming.
>
>
I know, I don't want to be sour, but when I started to learn haskell it
almost hurt. I took me a couple of months to loose the imperative style of
thought. I have a physics background and picked up programming along the
way. For some reason they never used functional languages. Such a pity.

But now it is backwards, every time I have to go back to imperative style or
something alike I am kinda bored. Luckily I slowly start to find it easier
to implement stuff in Haskell instead of in other languages.

But it is true, that you have to unlearn yourself. And for some reason I
feel functional languages have the future.

I think haskell has some points over lisp, because there is a lot of noise
in the latter with the ()'s.

Marc Weber <marco-oweber at gmx.de> wrote:

Ask him what he is interested in most. Start with that. Ask him what he
> wants to do ..
> If you have answers to that question Haskellers can help you easier and
> point you in the right direction.
>
> He is interested in econometrics, I don't know much about it. I understood
they use a lot of linear algebra. I have some books and sylabi about that,
but more pointed towards physics.

On Friday 02 July 2010 22:59:22, Marc Weber wrote:
> If you have answers to that question Haskellers can help you easier and
> point you in the right direction.

That reminds me of another point: The community. You won't easily find a
community nearly as helpful as the Haskell community.

That is true, this one of the most helpful communities I encountered.
Haskell programmers seems also to be more knowledgeable than other
programmers in maths.

I bought 2 books now:

The road to haskell, logic and mathematics.
Simon Thompson's Craft of Functional Programming

And I have Real world haskell lying around, but I lend it to someone else. I
am "poisoning" my environment with haskell at the moment. :) I am a start up
in the financial business. And one of the further goals is to develop
financial tools for small and middle sized business. (Now we have some
projects, which should induce a cash flow. Hopefully) Therefore the guy has
to understand, what Haskell can do.

I shall try to find out, what direction of mathematics interest him the
most.

Tnx for your help!

Edgar
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