Christopher Allen (4)

This book is a labyrinth presented as a learning path. It has multiple dead ends and frustrating skims over material that made me rage quit. The authors do not expect the reader to understand everything the first time read the book. They do not expect you to finish every exercise (they state this much from the outset). The authors, though, do not state WHICH things they do not expect you to understand the first time or WHICH exercises you won’t be able to complete. Sure, that will vary show more from reader to reader, but if you don’t heed this warning, you will waste too much time spinning out over trivial bits.

My recommendation is this: if you don’t understand something by the end of the chapter, Google it. You might end up ahead of the game sometimes, but you may find another explanation that may better suit your learning style.

Don’t sweat needing a break here and there. I took several throughout, and I came back to the book ready to take on another part.

Overall, the book is one whose approach I could not appreciate until I had finished it. In later sections, the book explained most frustrations I experienced. The book knows this and tries to tell you this. But being a 1200 page book, you will have doubts. Yes, you need to wait until the end to understand I/O and Exceptions. I appreciated the prior chapters’ knowledge when digging into those monsters. show less

As far as beginning Haskell books go, I think this is probably the best one out there. In the past I enjoyed reading the classic "Learn you A Haskell For Great Good" as my first foray into Haskell, but was disappointed in the lack of exercises. This book not only remedies that, but exceeds most other texts 10 fold (indeed there seems to be no limit at times, though this can definitely be helpful while trying to tackle what is generally agreed to be one of the toughest languages to learn). show more Having recently started my professional journey into Haskell-land, this book also does a pretty good job of filling in the cracks by covering some topics considered to be intermediate-level such as Monad Transformers. Though to get a true intermediate experience, I think you'd have to look into other books such as "Real World Haskell". show less