

The Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and Programming - zackham
http://homepages.cwi.nl/~jve/HR/

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ekidd
_The Haskell Road_ rocks my world. It’s an amazing book, especially for
programmers who want to become better at discrete math. (No Haskell experience
is required, and no math beyond high school algebra.) I read about six
chapters in a weekend (ouch!), and my understanding of logic, relations and
functions improved dramatically.

In general, doing abstract math in Haskell makes it a lot more accessible to
me. In particular, it’s nice knowing the types of all the equations.

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rbxbx
Completely agree. I read (a good bit of, not yet finished) this book along
with The Essence of Discrete Mathematics ([http://www.amazon.com/Essence-
Discrete-Mathematics-Neville-D...](http://www.amazon.com/Essence-Discrete-
Mathematics-Neville-
Dean/dp/0133459438/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292782533&sr=8-1)) and came
out of both with a pretty understanding of discrete mathematics and deeper
understanding of programming (especially around sets). With only a high school
mathematics background and very light Haskell experience, the material was
still completely approachable. Demonstrating these concepts with programming
made it so much more concrete for me. /ramble

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jules
Yes! When I do math in college I often get a nagging feeling of vagueness.
What is the significance of this theorem? Are the consequences of this theorem
"empirically" testable in the real world? For example by running a computer
program that tests many examples.

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zackham
I have spent the last year or so having false starts on learning Haskell; I
would reach an impasse as soon as I start asking "what will I use this for."
Once I decided to learn Haskell as a companion language for learning more math
and computer science, I was actually able to stay on track.

If you have any other books along the lines of this one to recommend I am all
ears. The time I have spent on these sorts of academic pursuits have paid off
incredibly well in the real world of programming for a living day-to-day.

~~~
hyle
Talking about books I would recommend _Introduction to Functional Programming_
1st edition (Prentice Hall 1988 -- the second, paradoxically, is "spoiled" by
Haskell), by Bird and Wadler.

~~~
zackham
Could you expand on what you mean by it being spoiled by Haskell?

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ssamuli
I have this book on my shelf, waiting for me to finish all the other books I'm
reading at the moment. But probably the motivating comments in this post will
help me get there faster.

