[Haskell-cafe] RE: Haskell as a first language?

[Andrew Butterfield]

Simon Peyton-Jones wrote:
> Haskell is a great language!  Check out haskell.org.   I'm ccing the Haskell Cafe which is read by many people better qualified to answer your question than me.   (Since I've been working on Haskell for many years, I am not well qualified to say how it seems to a beginner.)
>
> S
>
> | -----Original Message-----
> | From: Charles Turner [mailto:charlie.h.turner at googlemail.com]
> | Sent: 11 July 2009 22:52
> | To: Simon Peyton-Jones
> | Subject: Haskell as a first language?
> | 
> | I'll make this short! Do you think Haskell is a good language to start
> | with? I am brand new to programming and have been using Scheme, some of
> | my peers suggest I should use Haskell. It seems "professional" to me.
> | Has features that a beginner should not worry about. What would you
> | suggest. (I'm not worried about bias)
>   
The biggest probelm with full Haskell for beginners is that many type 
error messages require
some familiarity with the class system, which is not a beginner topic..

However, a good starting point perhaps is Helium - a stripped down 
version of Haskell
designed for teaching, with special care gvien to producing useful 
helpful error messages...

 http://www.cs.uu.nl/wiki/Helium

Then full Haskell could be introduced in semester 2/ year2 / whatever 
timeline suits

(Anything is better than Java...... sigh ;-)
> | 
> | Thank you very much for your time.
> | 
> | Charles Turner.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Haskell-Cafe mailing list
> Haskell-Cafe at haskell.org
> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
>   


-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Butterfield     Tel: +353-1-896-2517     Fax: +353-1-677-2204
Foundations and Methods Research Group Director.
School of Computer Science and Statistics,
Room F.13, O'Reilly Institute, Trinity College, University of Dublin
                            http://www.cs.tcd.ie/Andrew.Butterfield/
--------------------------------------------------------------------