If you read any of my posts about bashing curly braces and you
worked with Haskell then I am sure you have thought: wait until someone shows
Haskell to this guy. Well you have been right.
I am reading Learn Youa Haskell for Great Good! by Miran Lipovaca. My pride got bruised because
of the book subtitle: Beginners Guide. The guy showing me Haskell is a
university student from Slovenia .
I may have been a bit skeptical when buying a copy but I am more than happy. If
only any of the semantic web writers knew how to write as well as Miran (my semantic web reading or struggling
through it is another story).
Haskell learning in many ways revalidates my opinions. The concept sitting behind curly braces in
Java practically does not exist in Haskell.
If you see curly braces {} in Haskell you probably reading
record syntax. The underlying dislike of
the imperative code simply permeates throughout the language.
I think learning Haskell is a must do exercise for every
imperative programmer like myself. It is an eye opening experience to see a
language where if-else statement (even though unpopular in Haskell) is really a
function (well so it is in SCALA, but it is more in Haskell ;). You will start
thinking of Java if statements as ugly conditional side-effects. You will think of Java for-loops as ordered
collections of side-effects. You will because, well, they are.
So go get the book and enjoy it as much as I do.
