Introduction to Haskell Programming Language
You may have read about a lot of languages. But when you hear about Haskell, the first thing that comes to mind is “Here comes another so called wannabe language”. The first question that comes to mind is; WHY? Why is there a need for so many languages? Why does it need to be so difficult? Why is python or Ruby so easy, when compared to C or Java? And what the heck is Haskell?
Don’t worry. I am here today to answer all you questions. But first things first, what is Haskell? Normally, you wouldn’t find much people learning or talking about this language. The reason being, Haskell is not as simple as C or Python. YES! I said C. I have been a programmer for C since past 4 years and I actually find it very interesting. But that’s not the same case with Haskell.
I learnt Haskell because I find it very challenging unlike C or Python.Python is an extremely awesome language and very much flexible. You can almost do anything you want with that. Your imagination is only the limit in Python. Now, instead of me bragging about Python, lets start with Haskell. Because, that’s what we are here for, right?
But before you proceed to read any further, let me WARN you. This language is not for beginners; atleast not for absolute beginners. If you don’t have any prior experience in programming, Haskell will give you the feel of ROCKET SCIENCE. And that’s in bold. Programmers will understand it.
Haskell Programming Language is a pure functional Language. Or the proper term would be Mathematical. Any person who likes mathematics will be extremely comfortable with Haskell dynamic programming, especially with theorems.
But what is Functional Programming?
To be more specific, in functional programming language the original method of computation is the introduction of functions to arguments. Alongside other features these types of languages provide, functional programming offers extreme small and compact method for coding programs, including large abstraction methods to structure them, and it needs a mindset that knows how to word around its way to math which supports reasoning for programs, somewhat similar to theorems.
Such kind of languages are leading in the development of programming language design. All other programming languages such as PHP, Basic, C++, Java Python, Ruby, JavaScript, and Scala; all of these are high-level programming which express lambda expressions or closures.
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Pure functional languages introduce fully immutable structures and these functions do not have any kind of side effects. What this function does is it takes all immutable structures together as some kind of input and then creates a new similar structure as the given output.
Examples of adding integers in:
Python
>>>a=2
>>>b=3
>>>a+b
>>>5
C++
template <int x, int y>
struct add {
static constexpr int value = x + y;
};
int main() {
auto z = add<1,2>::value;
std::cout << z << std::endl;
return 0;
}
Haskell
add :: Int -> Int -> Int
add d e = d + e
main :: IO ()
main = do
let f = add 1 2
putStrLn $ show f
Haskell is actually an awesome programming language. It’s math is extremely complicated and straight to the point unlike others, where programs cannot be proven to be correct and in most cases, here, in Haskell they can, and if they compile, they will run without any issues. This however introduces new challenges.
Lets say, for example you cannot change even a single var here(var means variable). Recursion is the key to everything here. But you don’t need to worry. Once you get a hang of that, you will actually feel at home writing applications in Haskell. The only part where you would need to worry is when I said, “If they compile”. Hehehe…, that’s the most trickiest part in Haskell: ‘Compiling’.
Why Haskell Programming Language?
As for the above question, I ask, “Why Not?” Haskell is basically a good language to learn. Here, your code is simple and self-contained. There are no hassles or unnecessary indentations here. Haskell Programming Language also works well with ideas. You, with a decent amount of experience can write programs in high level as well as low level programming formats.
At one place, where Haskell is a great way to learn mathematics, inversely on the other hand, it’s also powerful for parallel programming in haskell which gives you a good amount of control over your pieces of algorithms as to how your types are structured in memory. Most of the time, people deprive advanced Haskell Programming Language because it looks like too low-level, but if you take a look at its positive note, then this proves that Haskell Functional Programming has the scalable features of low as well as high level.
Haskell is good start to pick up as a first language. Many obstacles people face when learning Haskell comes because they are too used to other high level languages like Python or Ruby, but thing is Haskell Programming Language is too different from them. Thus, if you don’t know anything about programming at all, you wont have any problem learning it as a first language.
It also much more easier to go from Haskell to learning something else rather than doing the vice-versa. Now you may be thinking that in the beginning I said, this language is not for beginners. Yes, I said that because I wanted to make sure you don’t waste 30 minutes of your reading this. If you have already invested this much time in reading about Haskell, then it means that you have a strong determination to learn. And that’s what you need to learn this language.
The Cons
Haskell is a great language, but like every other languages, Haskell Programming Langauge has its own set of traits. For example, the tooling, the error messages and the way its system is built are all more complex than they need to be. If you work in GHCi, then you would surely notice that error messages are not that helpful here as it is in Python, Golang, or Scala.
Not to mention that some of this is currently being worked on. The Haskell Platform is small and easy to install. Haskell on the other hand, offers a more stable REPL experience. The package management here have significant amout of changes recently, and they are still improving. Even the Emacs would be getting a good amount of improvements and new features soon as well.
Though haskell sounds too harsh as a beginner language, but once you have the basics right, its actually easy to migrate to either low-level languages or high-level languages because of its highly flexible characteristics, unlike in the case of languages like python or perl, if you learn that first, you will probably never think of learning a low-level languages because of its alienated code structure.
Haskell, is a considerably large language to learn in detail. In general, I would say that Haskell is a great first language to learn. The only part worth worrying is that it may need more effort to get you started and keep on continuing on a constant basis because of the issues with its tools, especially if you want to build an interesting program.
If I was aiming to teach Haskell programming language to people, I would put more effort in making the installation procedure more painless. One needs to have a proper set of modules, right version installed so that they have properly configured GHCi to compile problems.
Learning Haskell Programming Language means, you need to think in a functional manner. Many new programming languages allow the functional style of programming, but most developers do not make full usage of these features, since they think in a more of object oriented pattern, reason being their background comes from learning C or C++.
The Most Awaited Question
Now, for the most awaited question… What are the practical uses of Haskell?
Haskell is certainly used a lot in the industry, but not as commonly as C# or Java. So if you just want to learn it to help you get haskell programming jobs, it might actually be a waste of time. A better reason to learn Haskell is to get you familiar with functional style approach. This will happen at a much faster rate with Haskell than with another functional language like F# or Scala. You can also check my next blog on Haskell vs Scala to know the difference.
This reason behind this is because if you get too irate with the functional style, other languages have an option to make a switch to the object oriented approach. But that’s not the case with Haskell. Haskell Programming Language has a construct that forces you to write only in functional style since there is no other approach available. Last thing you can do is forfeit writing an application.
Conclusion
The End point of this whole blog is, if you are looking for a job in Haskell; wait until NASA or NSA starts hiring beginner Haskell programmers for job. Yup! That’s how rare it is. But if you are learning because you like challenges, then Haskell is the way. It will make you code much better in any language.
It will make you understand your problem in a proper manner, break them into proper parts and make the need of debugging as less as possible. If you are learning Haskell and some other programming languages as well, then Haskell is best suited for you. Because it will make a wise Programmer.
Related Articles
Here are some articles that will help you to get more detail about the Haskell Programming Language so just go through the link.
