The Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and Programming (Texts in Computing) (Paperback)

by Kees Doets (Author), van Jan Eijck (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 444 pages
• Publisher: College Publications (May 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0954300696
• ISBN-13: 978-0954300692
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #84,066 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Haskell Road to Discrete Math, April 9, 2006

By	John J. Rood (Holbrook, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Want to learn discrete math as in the non-calculus version of Math 101? Willing to work hard to learn it? Then this is the book for you! It is written in a user friendly style. The book has a chatty tone when explaining serious topics. The chat is the talk of experts, however, so it should never be underestimated. The book will teach you the functional programming language Haskell. This language is the most modern version of the Lisp family to have received any significant attention. It features advanced type features and lazy evaluation. The book covers all the "classic" topics of a discrete math course, to a considerable depth. Best of all, they are all implemented in Haskell. All except for the predicate calculus, that is. It would be a major piece of work indeed to have any implementation of this topic in a work at this level! The book teaches logic by example. One is taught the meaning, the rules and the insider's "recipes" of mathematical proofs. The book then covers the standard topics of sets, relations, functions, and induction / recursion with impressive computer implementations. The book goes on to a quick overview of the construction of the number systems of mathematics. It proceeds to a substantial treatment of combinatorics in a short space which includes implementation of polynomial solutions to recursion relations. Then it is on to corecursion, power series, and a hint of domain theory. The book ends with a modern chapter on the elements of set theory. All in all an excellent book! IMHO it is the best book out there on the topics in a discrete math course. It is amazing that all of this (except the serious parts of logic) could be implemented in Haskell so successfully. The one caveat about the book is that if you want to benefit fully from it, you are going to have to do some hard work.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pascal's logic calculator machine incarnate!, January 18, 2009

By	Malcolm Gorman (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is breathtaking in its clarity and depth. I'm into the chapter on using Haskell to prove logical theorems.

One of my all-time favourite subjects in undergraduate study was Logic. That you could translate English language arguments into logical symbolism and test their validity and soundness by following a set of rules was, to me, a revelation. By following a number of logical inference rules, one could build an argument that proves the validity of a conclusion. The use of truth tables was intriguing and so simple in concept.

Blaise Pascal (French philosopher, and whose name was given to the Pascal programming language) speculated about the possibility of a logic calculating machine. Well, this book shows how you can do it with Haskell.

The Haskell Road To Logic, Maths and Programming provides Haskell source code that you can run to demonstrate the validity of all the traditional logical inference rules that I learned in Logic.

It's a pleasure to read.

16 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I recommend every university library to have this book., March 16, 2006

By	Luby Liao (University of San Diego, San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In March 2006, there are only three or four books that boast Haskell in their titles. They are all excellent books. But the world can benefit from more Haskell books. In fact, we are in need of such books, especially CS1 texts. This book is a pleasure to read. I suspect that even math haters will not find it hostile. Anyone learning Haskell will find the book and its companion web site a valuable resouce. On the web site, you will find the source code from the book, such as Powerseries.hs. You can quickly play and experiment with it; read and learn from it.
I wish more books are as pleasant and affordable ($25).