[Caml-list] Books on FP

[Caml-list] Books on FP

[Oliver Bandel]

Hello,

I think about buying a book on FP-programming.

Is there a book, which can be recommended?

I know "The Craft of functional programming",
but after a while (since jumping from some
haskell-experiments to OCaml) have not read
further in it.

It's an interesting book, but too specific
focussed on haskell.

Are there more general books?
But I'm not a studied computer scientist, so
it's better if it is not too much specialized
mathematics and theory. It should be an introductional
book, but on an interesting level, which is
forcing the reader to explore practical problems.



TIA,
  Oliver
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Re: [Caml-list] Books on FP

[Jocelyn Sérot]

Le vendredi, 24 jan 2003, à 14:32 Europe/Paris, Oliver Bandel a écrit :

> Hello,
>
> I think about buying a book on FP-programming.
>
> Is there a book, which can be recommended?
>
> [...]

I would highly recommand Cousineau and Mauny's "The Functional Approach 
to Programming".
(http://pauillac.inria.fr/cousineau-mauny/main.html ).
I haven't read the english version, but the french one is very well 
written and shows IMHO a good
balance between theory and practice.

Jocelyn

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RE: [Caml-list] Books on FP

[Mattias Waldau]

Cousineau and Mauny's "The Functional Approach to Programming" is okay,
especially if want to program ocaml (even it has this stupid approach to
have a slightly different syntax in the book, which is so common for
books written by academics :-)

What did you think about the O'Reilly book on www.ocaml.org?

I am still looking for a bug like "Advanced tricks for the
ML-programmer", something like "Advanced C++ Programming Styles and
Idioms"
by James O. Coplien.

/mattias

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Re: [Caml-list] Books on FP

[Jocelyn Sérot]

Le vendredi, 24 jan 2003, à 16:55 Europe/Paris, Mattias Waldau a écrit :

> Cousineau and Mauny's "The Functional Approach to Programming" is okay,
> especially if want to program ocaml (even it has this stupid approach 
> to
> have a slightly different syntax in the book, which is so common for
> books written by academics :-)
>

The book uses Caml Light syntax. I agree this is annoying for those
who want to start with Objective Caml. But Caml Light is ok when 
learning
FP and the syntax differences are really minor so that 
shifting/translating from one
to the other is straightforward.

> What did you think about the O'Reilly book on www.ocaml.org?
>

Great book for doing "real" Ocaml programming (as opposed to learning).
But the focus is, imho, more on technical than on "fundamental" issues.

Personnaly, i use Cousineau and Mauny as a textbook when teaching
and the Oreilly as a reference book for my hacking.


> I am still looking for a bug like "Advanced tricks for the
> ML-programmer", something like "Advanced C++ Programming Styles and
> Idioms"
> by James O. Coplien.

So the Oreilly book may be a good choice ..

Just my 2 cents.
I would be happy to hear opinions from other Caml users

Jocelyn
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E-mail: Jocelyn.Serot@l_a_s_m_e_a.u_n_i_v-bpclermont.fr
S-mail: LASMEA - UMR 6602 CNRS, Universite Blaise Pascal, 63177 Aubiere 
cedex
Tel: +33.(0)4.73.40.73.30 - Fax: +33.(0)4.73.40.72.62
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Re: [Caml-list] Books on FP

[Chris Hecker]

I like the Cousineau and Mauny book for getting a feel for FP programming 
in Caml as well.  The syntax differences are very small, and I agree with 
the comment about theory versus practice (although the type inference 
chapter comes a bit early :).  It's a good book.

Chris

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Re: [Caml-list] Books on FP

[Gleb N. Semenov]

Oliver Bandel wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I think about buying a book on FP-programming.
> 
> Is there a book, which can be recommended?
> 
> I know "The Craft of functional programming",
> but after a while (since jumping from some
> haskell-experiments to OCaml) have not read
> further in it.
> 
> It's an interesting book, but too specific
> focussed on haskell.
> 
> Are there more general books?
> But I'm not a studied computer scientist, so
> it's better if it is not too much specialized
> mathematics and theory. It should be an introductional

Due to specific approach, "more general book" in functional
programming commonly contains introduction to "lambda calculus" and
other "mathematics". IMHO if You really want to understand the FP,
this "mathematics" will be very helpfull.

> book, but on an interesting level, which is
> forcing the reader to explore practical problems.

May be, the one practical problem in FP is 
"how the calculation can be perform?" or 
"what the anatomy of algorithm?". Nothing else.
The rest--is syntax of particular language :).

> 
> TIA,
>   Oliver

I can recommend the two books:

1. "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", by Abelson,
    Sussman, and Sussman ("SICP", "Wizard book").
    http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/
    One of the bibles in lisp/scheme world.

2. Field, A.J. and Harrison, P.G., 
   "Functional Programming", Addison-Wesley, 1988.
   Good theoretical introduction in functional programming.
   Available from amazon.com (or at local bookstores 
   which are selling used books).

Regards!
GNS

-- 
Gleb N. Semenov		111621, Muromskaya St. 21, apt. 2, Moscow, Russia 
gleb@ahome.ru        	phone: +7(095)700.0172
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Re: [Caml-list] Books on FP

[brogoff]

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On Fri, 24 Jan 2003, [ISO-8859-1] Jocelyn Sérot wrote:
> Le vendredi, 24 jan 2003, à 16:55 Europe/Paris, Mattias Waldau a écrit :
> > Cousineau and Mauny's "The Functional Approach to Programming" is okay,
> > especially if want to program ocaml (even it has this stupid approach 
> > to
> > have a slightly different syntax in the book, which is so common for
> > books written by academics :-)

The book was written a while ago, and translated, so there's no point in 
getting snooty about the use of Caml Light instead of OCaml, which, I agree,
is unfortunate. 

> > I am still looking for a bug like "Advanced tricks for the
> > ML-programmer", something like "Advanced C++ Programming Styles and
> > Idioms"
> > by James O. Coplien.
> 
> So the Oreilly book may be a good choice ..

I don't think that the O'Reilly book is such a book, though it's a great book 
for the working OCaml programmer.

What he's looking for would be more like a collection of Functional Pearls 
from the Journal of Functional Programming, with a focus on Caml (or at least 
non-Haskell :-) acrobatics. You know, things like Danvy's functional 
unparsing paper...

-- Brian


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