For what it's worth, the nature of Haskell is such that you do (at least currently) have to spend a lot of time reading research papers to understand what's going on. Maybe that will change sometime, but probably not soon. This ties in to the open-endedness of Haskell; I sometimes think that really understanding all of Haskell is like really understanding all of mathematics. This is frustrating, but it's also what makes the language so rewarding. I guess what I'm saying is: get used to it, it's not so bad. Mike Derek Elkins wrote:
On Tue, 2007-08-14 at 12:40 -0500, Lanny Ripple wrote:
What people need to do is stop reading two page blog posts by someone who's "just got" monads and read the well-written peer-reviewed papers I have taught many people to program in group settings and individually in my career. I have referred them to many tutorials. I have used many examples from tutorials I thought were useful. I can't recall a single time I've ever turned to a beginner and said, "And you really should brush up on the
Derek Elkins wrote: peer-reviewed papers to learn this part."
How about a book? You've never recommended a book? But even so, where did I say tutorial? The -are- good monad tutorials, they are just horribly out-weighed by bad ones. Further, having a tutorial as supplement to person-to-person education is totally different from trying to learn purely from tutorials. Also, what is wrong with papers or recommending them? Finally, how often have you been part of a community where the primary mode of documentation is a research paper...
by the people who clearly know what they are talking about. Luckily, for monads applied to Haskell we have Wadler, a witty, enjoyable and clear writer/speaker. All of Wadler's monad "introductions" are readable by anyone with a basic grasp of Haskell. You certainly don't need to be even remotely an academic to understand them. I'm willing to bet that many people who say they don't understand monads and have read "every tutorial about them" haven't read -any- of Wadler's papers.
I'm confused. Are you praising Wadler or bashing the tutorials (or both)? *I* was carping about the tutorials (and even mentioned that Wadler was my breakthrough) so I suspect we are in violent agreement.
I'm praising Wadler and bashing the good majority of monad tutorials, but not all of them. Mostly I'm pointing out an unreasonable aversion to reading papers, as if a paper couldn't possibly be understandable.
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