Re: [Haskell-cafe] Object Oriented programming for Functional Programmers

On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 7:46 AM, Strake wrote:

Disclaimer: My own experience with OO is limited.

Mine isn't quite so much...

On 30/12/2012, Daniel Díaz Casanueva wrote:

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My programming life (which has started about 3-4 years ago) has always been in the functional paradigm. Eventually, I had to program in Pascal and Prolog for my University (where I learned Haskell). I also did some PHP, SQL and HTML while building some web sites, languages that I taught to myself. I have never had any contact with JavaScript though.

...

I thought it could be good to me (as a programmer) to learn C/C++. It looks like I have to learn imperative programming (with side effects all over around) in some point of my programming life. So my questions for you all are:

* Is it really worthwhile for me to learn OO-programming? Likely. Some code is most readily written in objective style.

Learning a new paradigm is almost always a good idea. It gives you a new set of tools for approaching programming problems. Of course, the single worst thing you can do is try and force a paradigm onto a language that isn't meant for it.

...

* If so, where should I start? There are plenty of "functional programming for OO programmers" but I have never seen "OO programming for functional programmers". Smalltalk.

That's a good functional start. Personally, I'd go with Eiffel, because it means you can use Meyer's (no relation) Object Oriented Software Construction as a text. Unfortunately, you'll have to buy a dead trees copy of that text. It not only covers OO programming, but explains why things are the way they are, why the way C++ is is wrong, and provides an introduction to design-by-contract as well.