Top Selected Products and Reviews
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1.
- In Stock.
List Price: $25.95 Price: $16.73 You Save: $9.22 (36%) "Learn functional programming from the foundations" - By Ronald J. Legere (Las Vegas)
This volume will provide a solid foundation in functional programing semantics using the lambda calculus. This is a good second book on functional programing, for the reader desiring a deeper understanding of functional programming in general. The languages that they use in the end are Standard ML and Common Lisp, both of which are used in one form or another. (F/# for example has its foundations in ML). Lazy programming languages like Haskell are not addressed, and this is likely because at the time this book was written those languages were still under development.
The coolest part is that this volume shows you how to do everything with lambda calculus, that is with functions. Numbers, booleans, recursion, its all here. Great fun for the right kind of person.(29) -
2.
- In Stock.
List Price: $44.99 Price: $36.66 You Save: $8.33 (19%) "Must have Book. Best refresher on functional programming and a great second book for Scala" - By Sampath Kumar Singamsetty
Whether you already know Functional Programming or starting to learn, this book provides an excellent explanation to FP in general using Scala as the medium. Since the book just uses Scala as the underlying implementation language it might not act as a comprehensive guide to Scala, but it provides very good FP practices with loads of interesting exercises which are fun to solve and help you master FP principles and practices. Used this book along with the Scala book by Martin Odersky and I think they form a perfect pair for Scala learning. All in all this is a must have book if you want to master Functional programming with Scala.(67) -
3.
"Loved the chapters on functional composition and monads! Great read!" - By Puneet Srivastava
I purchased the early access of this book and being a novice programmer learning functional programming this book gave me a great platform to start with.
Halfway through the book its already impacted my programming style and significantly changed the way i approach programming problems. I feel the author takes the time to explain concepts and doesn't rush into topics. i particularly enjoyed the section on functional composition and design patterns using monads. I am eager to start applying these concepts to some of the current challenges i have to handle.
Definitely recommend the books for diving head first into functional programming and quickly learning the functional way of thinking.(26) -
4.
- In Stock.
List Price: $39.99 Price: $32.15 You Save: $7.84 (20%) "Extremely helpful, but maybe not for beginners" - By Patrick C. Kujawa (Butte, America)
I think this may be my first amazon review, but I had to respond after seeing two very negative reviews about this book. First, I can understand that this book can be confusing, as it dives right in to functional programming (FP) without a primer or appendix to help beginners. (I strongly recommend [defmacro - Functional Programming For The Rest of Us](http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/fp.html) for that purpose.) However, as an intermediate developer with an (apparently) above-average exposure to FP, I found this book to be extremely illuminating and incredibly useful for me to advance to the next level of FP understanding.
Sidenote: One reviewer asserts that the author is confused and perhaps lacks knowledge. I don't know Neal Ford, but I am very familiar with the output of the company at which he works - ThoughtWorks. I can say for certain that anyone employed by them for years is certainly knowledgeable ... full review(10) -
5.
- In Stock.
List Price: $29.99 Price: $23.19 You Save: $6.80 (23%) "Finally the Light Bulb turned on." - By Stephen L. Mcconnell (Carrolton, Ga United States)
As an old Fortran and Cobol Programmer, I had a hard time wrapping my mind around Object Oriented Programming and it took a while an several good books to do it about 20 years ago. I had heard a Neil Ford lecture on Functional Programming a couple of years ago and have tried to wrap my mind around it for 2 years.
I got this book and the lightbulb came on. I don't know what it was about this book that did so, but I really enjoyed it. Joshua ALSO is not a Functional Programming purist. He realizes that Functional is a good solution to many problems, but not all problems and one has to have some Stateful portions of your program (such as I/O and some Data Structures) and explains this.
However, the book gives one a step by step idea of how ... full review(10) -
6.
"A Few Missing Details" - By Let's Compare Options Preptorial (Worldwide)
Edu designers jokingly call discrete math "all the math that's now been removed from High School math requirements." In essence, discrete math is the study of logic and proof functions, and the logic behind programming and proofs in both math and programs. Functional programming captures this well, as it IS functions. This book is designed to cover 60% discrete math and 40% functional programming in ML, and pedagogically link and unite them as happens in the real world of applications. All the other texts in the field are silos, and it is really tough to "grok" either topic without the other.
Why ML? ML ("Meta Language") is a functional language that is a foundation (lamda-like proof discipline) for proof assistants like Coq and Isabelle, and this author's "hidden agenda" is writing proofs, which he (rightfully) sees at the foundation for discrete math, and how it unifies math and programming ... full review(3) -
7.
- Temporarily out of stock. Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your account will only be charged when we ship the item.
Price: $69.99 "Mathematical notation-based approach" - By Rahman (CA, USA)
The author utilizes mathematical notation rather than suffering through the inevitable inadequacies and limitations of any particular language (LISP, ML, Haskell, ..) However this actually simplifies the instruction, assuming the reader is familiar with set theory and the basics of formal logic.
The illustrations are primarily of the kind familiar to anyone involved in computer science, such as parse trees, flowcharts, and schematics of memory allocation. There are also mathematical type signatures.
Program examples include [very] infrequent ones in LISP, as well as occasional procedural examples given in antiquated-yet-adequate Pascal.
For the purpose of general instruction this may well be unexcelled in the field. Upon completion the reader will have a better underlying understanding of any particular functional language than peers who have been programming in one ad-hoc for a substantially longer time. Many of the general topics are ... full review(2) -
8.
- In Stock.
List Price: $49.99 Price: $43.88 You Save: $6.11 (12%) "The Design Patterns of FP" - By Daniel Lyons (Socorro, NM United States)
I'm not going to lie; I didn't make it through the second 2/3rds of this book. But that first third did more for my understanding of functional programming than the rest of my FP library did combined. This book seems to me to be the functional programming answer to Design Patterns. It's worth having on your shelf if you have any interest in functional programming, ML, or Haskell.(20) -
9.
"Best Haskell introduction out there, but there are some flaws." - By Miax (Munich, Germany)
Pros :
1. very well explained with many pictures and examples.
2. based on Haskell 2010(third edition)
Cons :
Learning Haskell is like learning C. Many of the language features are really easy, but some key features are challengeable.
When learning C, most of syntax/semantics except arrays and pointers can be learnt within few days, or even hours. But then, you would have hard time to master pointers, arrays and memory management, etc.
Haskell is not that different. Basic arithmetic, functions, types, pattern matching, guards and even recursions, you could learn in short time. But type classes, lambdas(especially, those reductions) are a bit harder and finally, monads can be very frustrating.
I am generally satisfied with the contents of the book, but his explain about lambdas and monads is a bit sparely. I think, he worried about to introduce mathematics(especially, lambda calculus and category ... full review(8) -
10.
"Take your python to the next level" - By Konstantinos Passadis
Python is not a functional programming language but it is multiparadigm and as such it has a lot of functional features. In fact, it turns out that using those features you end up writing elegant, idiomatic and bug-free code. This is what this book is all about. The author assumes familiarity with python but none with functional programming is required.
As the book progresses the reader is introduced to functional concepts (higher order functions, recursion, tail call optimization, lazy evaluation, lambdas, reductions, transformations, functional composition etc) as well as python tools and idioms (itertools, functools, decorator design pattern, designing concurrent processing etc.) via short and clearly explained examples. Towards the end the author even introduces "mystical" monads and applicative functors. In effect, by reading this book your achievement is twofold: 1. you get to understand functional concepts and see programming from a different way of thinking, which will make you ... full review(7) -
11.
- In Stock.
List Price: $29.99 Price: $17.26 You Save: $12.73 (42%) "Good but need to understand functional programming a bit to really utilize this book" - By Kevin Duffey (USA)
Overall it's a good book. However, coming from Java and "old style" JavaScript where by I don't know any functional programming, the concepts of functional programming are not easy to grasp with this book. I suggest another book first on learning functional programming concepts. The content is pretty good though.(36) -
12.
- In Stock.
List Price: $49.99 Price: $32.89 You Save: $17.10 (34%) "Excellent tutorial with a unique approach" - By anonymous
I usually don't like tutorial-style books, but am finding this one invaluable. More than the other F# titles to date, it explores at length what makes functional programming different, and what this means in a .NET context. A unique feature is the running comparison of F# with both traditional and "functional style" C#. Code listings are nicely labeled with arrows pointing out important details. The book is not intended as a language reference, and only lightly touches on the imperative and object-oriented sides of F#, or contents of standard .NET libraries, but this allows a more leisurely and thorough treatment of the distinctively functional concepts and their implications for program design. Highly recommended.(24)
