

Ask HN: Which functional programming language to get started with - v512

Like to learn any functional programming language but having hard time choosing one, Looking for a language which is easier to grasp the fundamentals of functional programming.
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smt88
I actually think that, compared to OOP, FP has a lot more theory and the
language matters less because the language constructs are simpler. I could see
someone saying "don't learn OOP by writing JavaScript", but for FP, there are
many languages that'll work for you.

Scala is probably a great target language, but I haven't seen tutorials for
Scala for beginners. It's a (relatively) complicated language, and its
adoption seems to be concentrated among people who are already experienced
developers.

All that said, I'd suggest Haskell. It's purely functional, and it actually
forces certain functional practices (e.g. immutable identifiers).

I can't honestly tell you a good place to start because I don't know how much
formal CS education you have, but see if this is your speed:
[http://learnyouahaskell.com](http://learnyouahaskell.com)

There's also Real World Haskell, a tree book that is now a free e-book:
[http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/](http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/)
(please excuse my rhymes).

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darthVapor
I would say Scala if you have any background in java. Scala isn't strict so if
you're working on a time sensitive project you can still use OO to get the job
done in time. Other than that Common Lisp might be a good starting point.

