On 6/12/06, Chad Scherrer wrote:

Ok, so I'm doing things somewhat backward. I've been using Haskell for a while now, whenever I get a chance to. But in order to become more involved in high-performance computing projects at my work, I need to learn C. [snip] My question is, as I learn C, are there any particular Haskell concepts I should keep in the back of my mind, or is it better to approach C from scratch?

Sounds like you would be an almost ideal user for Jekyll. Too bad it's only in the alpha stages: http://jekyllc.sourceforge.net/ You might find it useful to study how Haskell's familiar product and sum types would be represented in unfamiliar C. If I recall correctly you can find examples of the translation in the Jekyll presentations/documentation. So even if you never used it, it would be a worthwhile read. Good luck, Jason

I did the transition the other way, and even now the real-world keeps me using more C-like languages (Java, Python). Unlike the transition from imperative languages to Haskell, I don't think there's much you have to unlearn or rethink. But I suspect you may feel a degree of frustration at how incredibly primitive C may seem after learning to use the power that Haskell makes available. Where you can map Haskell idioms into C, I think they may serve you well (I've found this to be the case with Python, but the gap from Haskell to C is somewhat greater). You mention "high performance" computing. I think there are two ways of achieving this: the C way might be described as "micro optimization" -- getting the small but important things to run as efficiently as possible The Haskell was is more a case of "macro optimization" -- getting the overall algorithmic approach to be as smart as possible. There's a place for both, but once you get involved in micro-optimization it can be very difficult to go back and fix the macro performance issues. So you might do well to first code algorithms in Haskell first, and experiment with the algorithms, if only as a way of specifying the solution to be implemented in C. #g -- Chad Scherrer wrote:

Ok, so I'm doing things somewhat backward. I've been using Haskell for a while now, whenever I get a chance to. But in order to become more involved in high-performance computing projects at my work, I need to learn C.

I've heard a lot of people say that experience in Haskell can improve one's abilities in other languages, but I also wonder how different the C "way of doing things" is different from Haskell's.

My question is, as I learn C, are there any particular Haskell concepts I should keep in the back of my mind, or is it better to approach C from scratch?

Thanks in advance!

Preparing for a foot-shooting, Chad

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