Haskell Programming From First Principles Study Group – Meeting 1

• Introduction to Haskell and functional programming

• Chapters 1 and 2 — Lambda calculus and getting started with Haskell

This is a study group for learning Haskell and working together, a chapter at a time, through Chris Allen and Julie Moronuki's wonderful new introductory Haskell book. If you think Haskell or functional programming are difficult, this book was written with you in mind! Instead of confronting unfamiliar abstractions without having any context for understanding them, we will learn functional programming from the ground up. With a solid foundation in place, learning Haskell—arguably the purest expression of functional programming principles—will not only seem simply but even easy. If you already know Haskell or need a review, you are also welcome to participate and help others get up to speed.

We will hold our first meeting in just under two weeks. The generous and good looking folks at Bēhance (https://www.behance.net/about) have offered to host us and provide pizza and beer, though you may want to moderate your consumption so as to remain "functional" (LOL?).

Space for this meeting is limited, so we can only accept the first 20 people to RSVP. Even if you cannot come, please follow along anyway and come to a future meeting—we are likely to rotate among different spaces with different capacities. And you can always seek help on the New York Haskell Users Group Slack Team (http://ny-haskell.herokuapp.com/).

Reminder: this is not a class, and for the most part there won't be any talks or lectures. It is a study group, so make sure you do the reading and the exercises in advance and be prepared to go over the exercises in small groups. This is the most effective way to learn Haskell, and you will have more fun doing it this way than just listening to someone talk about it.

If you have not done so already, please purchase Haskell Programming from First Principles (http://haskellbook.com). Discount codes for the book are available for those who need one (email Steven Syrek (steven.syrek@gmail.com) or request one on Slack).

Then go ahead and read chapters 1 and 2 and, most importantly:

Make sure you do the exercises!

Also check out the GitHub repo (https://github.com/sjsyrek/study-haskell-nyc) for this study group, which we can collaboratively keep up to date with useful links, scheduling info, etc.

See you on the 20th, when we'll dive into the lambda calculus, get Haskell set up on your machines, and start learning its beautiful, concise, expressive syntax!