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Daniel -- can you tell me what was missing from YAHT that wasn't sufficient for starting to use Haskell? It was really intended to solve these problems, at least partially, so if it's missing out, I'd like to fix it!

I haven't read it. I refuse to give out personal information to read a tutorial.

I don't mean to be obnoxious, but given:

This is a real problem for Haskell. I expect that a lot of people try Haskell and give up because they can't even write the simplest function.

and

Thank you. I did find that page, and it was very easy to find. The problem is that the content of that page, and its links, didn't show me how to write a Haskell program (like you did).

and

Well, I tried all three (Hugs, GHCI, GHC). The problem is that the tutorials I found didn't tell me how to run a Haskell program once it was written.

and

Any of the following would be an apt solution:

1) Update the tutorials linked to tell the user how to run a program.

and

You see, as a site visitor, I have to assume that the tutorials you are giving me are the ones you expect I should read.

and

There's no way for a new user to figure out how to successfully run the simplest Haskell program.

and

I just Googled for "Introduction to C". The first link was: http://www.le.ac.uk/cc/tutorials/c/ It includes a brief section on both MS Visual C++ and the Unix CC.

The fifth link for "Haskell Tutorial" is the pdf version of YAHT. and

I do suggest that the "Learning Haskell" page could be improved with a brief (couple of paragraph) tutorial to get someone through Hello world. Or perhaps update the tutorials to say that.

<rant> (Please feel free to skip down to </rant>) It seems a bit unfair to say that there are no good ways of learning information about Haskell. Yes, I'm shamelessly plugging my own tutorial, but that's because I think it's pretty good. It also answers all of the questions you've posted to the list, I believe. These sorts of questions come up *all the time*. A quick perusal of the mailing list archives will show that. This is part of the whole motivation for putting YAHT together: so all the nice Haskell people who do spend their time answering these questions repeatedly don't have to! So basically what you're saying is: someone who wants to learn Haskell but doesn't want to fill out a 10 second form can't find the information to do so. There's no requirement that the form be filled out correctly -- you can enter whatever invalid information you want. Also, as you can see above, just searching for "Haskell Tutorial" will turn you up with a PDF version freely. If you spend another 30 seconds, you can find a version translated into Portuguese or Chinese, if you prefer that. I know your argument was that you should *have* to do that work, but it is *your* choice not to fill out a silly little form that means nothing, and if you don't want to do that, then you can find another way. The tutorial is mirrored like 100 times and it's not hard to find one of those. The amount of effort to find a non-formed version is <<<<< than the effort to send lots of emails to the mailing list asking questions answered in the first chapter. </rant> But, yes, here's the solution: haskell.org people, please just link to the .pdf I think this solution should please everyone. - Hal p.s., I apologize for the rant. Although I don't spend my time mailing on this list recently, I still read it regularly and have updated YAHT several times in the past year to improve it via user comments. And everyone here has always been really friendly to me and other beginners, which is one of the many reasons why I like Haskell so much. I just felt that the above quoted lines (among others) were a misrepresentation of the situation, and given that I put a non-trivial amount of effort into making the situation better, I got somewhat annoyed. -- Hal Daume III | hdaume@isi.edu "Arrest this man, he talks in maths." | www.isi.edu/~hdaume

On Tue, Dec 20, 2005 at 06:54:27AM -0800, Hal Daume III wrote:

So basically what you're saying is: someone who wants to learn Haskell but doesn't want to fill out a 10 second form can't find the information to do so. There's no requirement that the form be filled out correctly -- you can enter whatever invalid information you want.

Even though I know this to be true, whenever I encounter a form like this on the web I just immediatly press 'back' unless I am specifically looking for what I know is behind it. It is not for any particular ideological reasons, it is just my default action and I think it is for many other people too. In particular, I would immediatly just go to the next tutorial on the list when presented with such a page. I can't really defend it with any particular reasoning, I am just saying it how it is. John -- John Meacham - ⑆repetae.net⑆john⑈

Hal Daume III wrote:

Fair enough. The silly form has disappeared :).

You can just make the form optional. Something like this: ---//--- <link>Here's a link to my tutorial</link> Also, I love hearing about who is using this tutorial. Please consider filling out this form. ---//--- You get the idea. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/ I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. /

John Meacham wrote:

Even though I know this to be true, whenever I encounter a form like this on the web I just immediatly press 'back' unless I am specifically looking for what I know is behind it. It is not for any particular ideological reasons, it is just my default action and I think it is for many other people too. In particular, I would immediatly just go to the next tutorial on the list when presented with such a page. I can't really defend it with any particular reasoning, I am just saying it how it is.

At a minimum, there are usability reasons why the vast majority of people will tend to do that exactly. I don't have the reference on me right now, but I read this in a usability book called "Don't make me Think" :) It's very good. The case becomes even stronger when the particular form is asking you for something you might consider personal information. My first reaction is that it's none of their business and makes me want to go elsewhere. Cheers, Daniel. -- /\/`) http://oooauthors.org /\/_/ http://opendocumentfellowship.org /\/_/ \/_/ I am not over-weight, I am under-tall. /