[OT] Teaching Haskell in High School

[Paul Hudak]

I can't resist jumping in on this one:

> Haskell just has some terrible properties when it comes to teaching
> beginners.  Among them are the complex and easy-to-get-wrong syntax,
> the available programming environments which are OK for developers but
> awful for beginners.  There's also a dearth of good textbooks at the
> level you need.  Haskell is very easy to learn (and an excellent
> choice for a 2nd or 3rd language) when you know Scheme.

I have spent many years teaching both Scheme and Haskell to beginners,
and I would have to say that Haskell syntax has never been a serious
problem, certainly no more than Scheme's parentheses.  It is true that
there is a lack of good programming environments, although Hugs is
pretty easy to use, and things like Helium should be even better.  (I
won't say much about textbooks since I wrote one that I think is pretty
good for beginners :-)  Finally, aside from extraneous type error
messages (which Helium should do much better at), I claim that Haskell's
type system is BETTER for beginners compared to having no type system at
all.  As for the last point above, I could just as easily say that
Scheme is very easy to learn (and an excellent choice for a 2nd or 3rd
language) when you know Haskell.

Now, having said all this, I will add that I have the greatest respect
for the TeachScheme project, and I wish that we had something as well
developed for Haskell!

  -Paul