[plt-scheme] Re: Change the World

I don't understand this line of reasoning at all.  Sure, bookstores don't
usually stock books on functional programming, but you can easily order
them from Amazon or any number of other internet stores.  What's more,
those sites usually have links to other similar books.  You can find
several books on lisp, scheme, haskell, or standard ML.  Ocaml is a bit
harder, since most of the books are in French ;-) If you need suggestions
as to which books to buy, I'd be happy to give some for any of those
languages.  I think there are more interesting books on functional
programming available now than ever before.

I agree that learning functional programming on your own is probably harder
than learning imperative programming on your own, but not for this reason
-- it's because of the generally higher level of abstraction required.
That's also what makes functional programming more fun.

Personally, I think the relative lack of popularity of functional
programming has its advantages.  Anyone with a functional programming
background is automatically ahead of the curve, and I believe that
eventually the advantages of functional programming will become apparent to
employers -- I've seen some indications of this happening already.  You can
also use it to select out the really clueful employers from the idiots
(sort of like a job interview in reverse).

Mike (who also learned functional programming on his own)

> From: "jekwtw" <jeaniek7 at comcast.net>
> Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 18:04:20 -0600
> 
>   For list-related administrative tasks:
>   http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
> 
> I can't speak for the book situation nation-wide, but it's been pretty
> dismal around the Minneapolis-St. Paul in recent years.  I've watched
> Borders and Barnes&Noble both succomb to the "foo for dumies" trend, and now
> even Microcenter is beginning to show signs.  I've spoken to managers a
> number of times over the years, but with no discernable effect.  I'm sure
> that Amazon, etc. have applied pressure, and of course no one wants to keep
> inventory.  Whatever the causes, the net effect has been contraction of
> stock to the most popular -- 10^6 largely redundant texts on .net, C##,
> Java, and no replenishment of stock dealing with the Lisp/Scheme, much less
> ML or Haskell.
> 
> Thus, learning on one's own from books has gotten much harder since I
> started.
> 
> *gloom*
> 
>  -- Bill Wood
>     bill.wood at acm.org
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Alex Peake" <alex.peake at comac.com>
> To: <plt-scheme at list.cs.brown.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 4:37 PM
> Subject: [plt-scheme] Re: Change the World
> 
> 
> >   For list-related administrative tasks:
> >   http://list.cs.brown.edu/mailman/listinfo/plt-scheme
> >
> > > Subject: Re: [plt-scheme] Re: Change the World
> > > From: Guillaume Marceau <gmarceau at cs.brown.edu>
> > > To: Geoffrey Knauth <geoff at knauth.org>
> > > Cc: plt-scheme at list.cs.brown.edu
> > > Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 13:51:43 -0500
> > >
> > > On Mon, 2005-03-21 at 10:14 -0500, Geoffrey Knauth wrote:
> > >
> > > > I'm trying to guess what makes it hard for Scheme to "catch
> > > on" in the
> > > > mainstream.
> > >
> > > My pet theory is that it's very difficult to learn functional
> > > programming alone, on your own. You have to go to class and
> > > get it taught to you. Or you have to have a friend teaching it to you.
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > >
> > > -- Guillaume (via proxy)
> > >
> >
> > I must disagree. I use a method that is to use books, but several of them.
> The several give you
> > different viewpoints, approaches, examples and the like that together
> paint a complete enough
> > picture.
> >
> > That is not to say that all people learn from books, but a trip to Borders
> (or similar) does
> > demonstrate that LOTS of books on programming are purchased.
> >
> > Alex
> >
>