[Haskell-cafe] First steps in Haskell

[Chris Kuklewicz]

Daniel Carrera wrote:

>> Hello all,
>>
>> I'm trying to write the simplest possible Haskell program, and I'm not
>> getting anywhere.
>>
>> I have installed Hugs, GHC and GHCI. I want to run the following program:
>>
>> fac :: Integer -> Integer
>> fac 0 = 1
>> fac n | n > 0 = n * fac (n-1)
>>


$ ghci

Prelude> let { fac :: Integer -> Integer; fac 0 = 1; fac n | n > 0 = n *
fac (n-1) }
Prelude> fac 12
479001600




>>
>> This is a real problem for Haskell. I expect that a lot of people try
>> Haskell and give up because they can't even write the simplest function.
>> It's hard not to be put off by this. I love the theory behind Haskell,
>> but the practice of it seems to be a real problem.
>>
>> I hope someone will show me how to make this program work. Even better,
>> I hope someone will fix the compilers and interpreters if they need
>> fixing, or fix the documentation if that's what needs fixing.
>>
>> Best,
>> Daniel.


Almost everything is explained under

http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/6.4.1/html/users_guide/ghci.html

The main things is: The ghci prompt accepts either command, starting with
a color such as :load
"filename" or haskell IO code, since it is in a do-block. Thus let is
required.

The 2-D Layout syntax does not work at the ghci prompt, thus the
braces-and-semicolon style I used.

More typically you would write your code in a file, as shown in:
http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/6.4.1/html/users_guide/ch03s02.html