My own experience with Learn You a Haskell was different from Jeff's. I found the stuff on applicatives difficult, and couldn't see their point much, so I just kept going with the book without bothering to understand them fully. Monads I found a lot easier to understand and much easier to see their point. I don't think you need to understand applicatives before you understand monads; in fact, I think it's easier the other way round. And monads seem to be used much more often than applicatives in Haskell. I eventually got back to applicatives when I was mucking around with Parsec. In the context of parsing, it was a lot easier to understand how they work and why they're useful. On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 10:21 AM, Jeff C. Britton wrote:

I had originally encountered problems at this point myself. I lost motivation because I had just had this feeling that programming with applicatives was just not going to be fun, and it was beginning to seem like Haskell programming might involve a lot of this. I put the book down for about 1 year. Somewhere I came across an article on Monads that changed my mind. I started over and am now almost done with Chapter 13. This time around things are looking a lot cooler. I think chapters 11,12, and 13 may lack the motivational information to keep one going. I can say that the author Miran Lipovaca really does a great job of explaining this material. I don't think you are going to find a better source. Absolutely every step of the way is laid out in painstaking detail. Plus there are constant reminders of material that was just covered that is relevant to the immediate situation. All I can say is go slow and make sure you understand every detail before proceeding. Keep at it regularly so as not to forget important terms. Go back and reread if necessary. Have the confidence that it will be worthwhile. The Monad chapters are little bit more interesting, but you will need to understand the applicatives first. I learned a new word today, "Sisyphean."

*From:* Beginners [mailto:beginners-bounces@haskell.org] *On Behalf Of * Frank *Sent:* Tuesday, August 26, 2014 7:33 PM *To:* The Haskell-Beginners Mailing List - Discussion of primarily beginner-level topics related to Haskell *Subject:* [Haskell-beginners] LYAHFGG, chapter 11 question

About "Learn You a Haskell ...", is it My imagination or is chapter 11 absurdly long and/or thick? I can (and have) read a 100+ page U.S. Supreme Court ruling, readily understand it, and be able to explain it in plain English, with next to zero trouble. I spend every work day reading, parsing, interpreting, and using, the ISO C++ standard. I *taught* My undergraduate Physics IV class while simultaneously taking it. Yet, chapter 11 feels as if it goes on and on to the point I easily forget what I read just a few lines before, rendering comprehension of the same an almost Sisyphean task. Is it just Me? Am I just tired? Is there an alternative resource for understanding the concepts that particular chapter presents?

Sincerely,

Frank D. Martinez

-- P.S.: I prefer to be reached on BitMessage at BM-2D8txNiU7b84d2tgqvJQdgBog6A69oDAx6

_______________________________________________ Beginners mailing list Beginners@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners

I learned a new word today, “Sisyphean.”

Me too! :) Peter On 27 August 2014 04:21, Jeff C. Britton wrote:

I had originally encountered problems at this point myself. I lost motivation because I had just had this feeling that programming with applicatives was just not going to be fun, and it was beginning to seem like Haskell programming might involve a lot of this. I put the book down for about 1 year. Somewhere I came across an article on Monads that changed my mind. I started over and am now almost done with Chapter 13. This time around things are looking a lot cooler. I think chapters 11,12, and 13 may lack the motivational information to keep one going. I can say that the author Miran Lipovaca really does a great job of explaining this material. I don’t think you are going to find a better source. Absolutely every step of the way is laid out in painstaking detail. Plus there are constant reminders of material that was just covered that is relevant to the immediate situation. All I can say is go slow and make sure you understand every detail before proceeding. Keep at it regularly so as not to forget important terms. Go back and reread if necessary. Have the confidence that it will be worthwhile. The Monad chapters are little bit more interesting, but you will need to understand the applicatives first. I learned a new word today, “Sisyphean.”

*From:* Beginners [mailto:beginners-bounces@haskell.org] *On Behalf Of * Frank *Sent:* Tuesday, August 26, 2014 7:33 PM *To:* The Haskell-Beginners Mailing List - Discussion of primarily beginner-level topics related to Haskell *Subject:* [Haskell-beginners] LYAHFGG, chapter 11 question

About "Learn You a Haskell ...", is it My imagination or is chapter 11 absurdly long and/or thick? I can (and have) read a 100+ page U.S. Supreme Court ruling, readily understand it, and be able to explain it in plain English, with next to zero trouble. I spend every work day reading, parsing, interpreting, and using, the ISO C++ standard. I *taught* My undergraduate Physics IV class while simultaneously taking it. Yet, chapter 11 feels as if it goes on and on to the point I easily forget what I read just a few lines before, rendering comprehension of the same an almost Sisyphean task. Is it just Me? Am I just tired? Is there an alternative resource for understanding the concepts that particular chapter presents?

Sincerely,

Frank D. Martinez

-- P.S.: I prefer to be reached on BitMessage at BM-2D8txNiU7b84d2tgqvJQdgBog6A69oDAx6

_______________________________________________ Beginners mailing list Beginners@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners

Actually, I remember that that chapter being difficult too, so much so that I don't think I finished it. It might be worth coming back to that chapter later, after you have more practical experience. In the mean time though, if I could tell you only one fact about how to use Applicative, it would be this. Say you have some pure function: f :: Int -> Int -> Int -> Int And some values that may or may not be in the context of some Applicative functor (let's say Maybe) x :: Maybe Int y :: Int z :: Maybe Int Then you can call f like this: (f <$> x <*> pure y <*> z ) :: Maybe Int So if you were in the middle of some do notation you could do myF <- f <$> x <*> pure y <*> z ... rather than the more painful do x' <- x z' <- z let myF = f x' y z' ... On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 10:22 AM, Peter Hall wrote:

...

I learned a new word today, “Sisyphean.”

Me too! :)

Peter

On 27 August 2014 04:21, Jeff C. Britton wrote:

...

I had originally encountered problems at this point myself. I lost motivation because I had just had this feeling that programming with applicatives was just not going to be fun, and it was beginning to seem like Haskell programming might involve a lot of this. I put the book down for about 1 year. Somewhere I came across an article on Monads that changed my mind. I started over and am now almost done with Chapter 13. This time around things are looking a lot cooler. I think chapters 11,12, and 13 may lack the motivational information to keep one going. I can say that the author Miran Lipovaca really does a great job of explaining this material. I don’t think you are going to find a better source. Absolutely every step of the way is laid out in painstaking detail. Plus there are constant reminders of material that was just covered that is relevant to the immediate situation. All I can say is go slow and make sure you understand every detail before proceeding. Keep at it regularly so as not to forget important terms. Go back and reread if necessary. Have the confidence that it will be worthwhile. The Monad chapters are little bit more interesting, but you will need to understand the applicatives first. I learned a new word today, “Sisyphean.”

*From:* Beginners [mailto:beginners-bounces@haskell.org] *On Behalf Of * Frank *Sent:* Tuesday, August 26, 2014 7:33 PM *To:* The Haskell-Beginners Mailing List - Discussion of primarily beginner-level topics related to Haskell *Subject:* [Haskell-beginners] LYAHFGG, chapter 11 question

About "Learn You a Haskell ...", is it My imagination or is chapter 11 absurdly long and/or thick? I can (and have) read a 100+ page U.S. Supreme Court ruling, readily understand it, and be able to explain it in plain English, with next to zero trouble. I spend every work day reading, parsing, interpreting, and using, the ISO C++ standard. I *taught* My undergraduate Physics IV class while simultaneously taking it. Yet, chapter 11 feels as if it goes on and on to the point I easily forget what I read just a few lines before, rendering comprehension of the same an almost Sisyphean task. Is it just Me? Am I just tired? Is there an alternative resource for understanding the concepts that particular chapter presents?

Sincerely,

Frank D. Martinez

-- P.S.: I prefer to be reached on BitMessage at BM-2D8txNiU7b84d2tgqvJQdgBog6A69oDAx6

_______________________________________________ Beginners mailing list Beginners@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners

_______________________________________________ Beginners mailing list Beginners@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners