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Ask HN: What's the best way to teach FP to EE/CS students?

2 points by sriram_malhar ↗ HN
I'd like to students to learn the importance of immutability, versioned data structures, pattern matching etc. The hope is that once they get comfortable with an FP language, it will have an effect on the way they write systems in any language. The students are sophomores in EE and CS, familiar with C and python.

I'm looking for an FP language where I can do something familiar (RPi programming, games, web stuff ... but not parsers and type-checkers). I'm looking for the FP equivalent of python in its simplicity of usage and immediate usability.

I have been trying Elixir, but it is more like Elixir is trying me :) I tried the Phoenix hello world application, and it was ready 10 minutes later after downloading 3.1G. I know that it is downloading a lot of batteries, but the sheer amount of things you need to know before you can deploy a silly app is mind-boggling. I tried nerves for the RPi, but it seems like every time you tweak one file, you have to burn the SD card all over again. Again, these are quite likely newbie problems, but when I have to deal with 50 newbies, they scale up! I haven't tried Clojure on the RPi.

Any suggestions? Alternatively, does anyone do FP in python? I am aware of the 'functional' package, and I could always teach functional principles in python (a side-effect free state machine, for example). But having first-class support in the language is so much easier. I have only used FP in the context of building type-checkers, so I don't have first-hand experience.

Sorry for the wall of text, but any ideas will be much appreciated.

4 comments

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austincheney
Beginners are most concerned with composition and style. Syntax is easy because when you get it wrong everything is broke. After that everything is a matter of how to put things together. It’s like playing with legos and needing the instruction manual.

Knowing that instead reverse the problem. Instead of teaching putting things together try instruction from tearing things apart. The goal being circumventing composition and replacing that with thinking about the solution, the end state. Composition, the thing beginners so fixate on, will come out about incidentally.

As for FP specifically there are two approaches people seem to think about: return value and structure. In teaching from return value the focus is upon input/output and control flow whether from chaining or nesting function calls as this tends to be more declarative. Teaching from the perspective of structure focuses more on scope, call order, and asynchronous states which tends to be more imperative. Let a given problem dictate the specifics of the FP execution.

As for specific languages Clojure is really popular in this area with an emphasis on conciseness. Haskell is syntax heavy but is the elder statesmen of FP languages. I prefer TypeScript myself, but is probably far less ideal for teaching these concepts.

sriram_malhar
Yes, that is precisely my starting point - real world apps. I want to avoid a mixed mode approach (for example, python with the 'functional' package) because I feel that immutability (for example) is best learnt in an environment that doesn't support mutability at all. It'd be nice to have pattern matching as well, because it is easier to parse network protocols (as in Erlang's binary matching)
aszen
Thing is since they are students with less coding experience they won't know the dangers of mutability and why immutability is a better choice. That is why a contrast between the two approaches is useful, you want to demonstrate what immutability enables. A pure functional approach is useful if you have suffered the perils of mutability and want to see the light
sriram_malhar
Yes, I have been showing a bunch of examples of _systems_ that have these properties, such as the data structures in the linux kernel protected by RCU locks, multi-version databases, git etc.

Elm is certainly an excellent suggestion, and I will keep that in mind. Right now I have a bunch of super sharp EE people who are pretty decent python/C/embedded programmers, and I was looking for some language for which the barrier to entry is low.

Elixir's environment (mix) doesn't feel simple. Maybe it is just a matter of a little time. The documentation constantly makes references to erlang and to Ruby, so a student feels a bit on edge about the scope of learning.