Informatics 1 – Functional Programming
Contents
- People
- Course description
- Schedule
- Examination
- Programming competition
- Course resources
- Other resources & external links
1. People
| Lecturer: |
Philip Wadler |
|
IF 5.02 |
| Teaching Assistant: |
Phil Scott |
|
IF 2.05 |
2. Course description
The course teaches the basics of functional programming using the language Haskell. The main goal is to acquaint the student with fundamental programming concepts such as recursion, abstraction, higher-order functions and data types, whilst at the same time emphasizing the practical use of such constructs by applying them within a graphical environment.
The course is part of Informatics 1.
3. Schedule
The course comprises 20 lectures and 9 tutorials, spread over the eleven weeks of the semester. There is also the drop-in lab: special times at which the computer room in Appleton Tower is staffed by demonstrators, who are ready to help out with any questions on the course material. Lecture notes, tutorial exercises and solutions will be made available here on a weekly basis.
Lectures
Lectures are on Mondays and Tuesdays, starting
week 2.
- Mondays, 2:00–2:50pm, Appleton Tower, Lecture Theatre 4
- Tuesdays, 11:10–12:00am, Appleton Tower, Lecture Theatre 3
See also the
semester 1 timetable
for Informatics 1.
Drop-in lab
At these times lab demonstrators will be available to assist with the coursework. Drop-in lab is held daily at Computer Lab West or North on level 5 of Appleton Tower.
| | | | |
| Mondays | 3:30–4:30pm | Lab West |
| Tuesdays | 2–4pm | Lab West |
| Wednesdays | 2–4pm | Lab West |
| Thursdays | 2–4pm | Lab West |
| Fridays | 3:30–4:30pm | Lab North |
Every student should attend their assigned lab during Lab Week in week 2; lab assignments are
here. Lab week exercises are posted in the table below.
After week 2, the labs are run on a drop-in basis.
Tutorials
Tutorial groups with their times and places can be found
here.
Tutorials are held in groups of 10–12, on Thursdays and Fridays,
starting in week 3. Students are expected to prepare for each
tutorial, which includes completing the exercises and reading the
appropriate chapters in the textbook.
Tutorial exercises will be posted in the table below,
and are due at the tutorial of the same week—for instance, the
exercises of week 3 will be discussed during the tutorials on Thursday 6
and Friday 7 October. Exercises will be made available at least a week
before they're due.
You must attempt the work before the tutorial and bring with you
a printout of the work you have done. Tutorials are mandatory, and the
only way to learn is to do the work before the tutorial, not at the tutorial.
Students who have not done the work in advance will be sent away.
Schedule
4. Examination
Examination is done through two tests. The first, the class test, is a hand-written exam held on October 24th in place of the lecture (at the same time and place). The second, the final exam, is a programming test held in the computer labs, scheduled for the examination weeks at the end of the semester. The class test contributes 10% towards the final mark, the final exam contributes 90%.
Notes
- The final exam is open-book, which means you can use the textbook and your personal notes during the exam. A list of common library functions will still be provided. Also, the
online reference guide at ZVON
will be made available on your computer.
- The class test is closed-book, i.e. you are not allowed to use the textbook or your personal notes. This does not mean you have to memorize the prelude: a summary of the library functions that you might need will be provided.
- To help practice for the exam there is also a mock exam, scheduled for week 10 of the semester.
- Previous exams and solutions can be found below.
- Tutorial exercises are compulsory, but will not count towards the final mark.
5. Programming Competition
Each year the course is concluded with a thrilling programming competition, with an actual prize draw and first prize. The competition usually centers round the drawing of fractal-based images. This provides students with an excellent opportunity to show off the skills they have learned during the course, and to set loose their creativity in an unconstrained environment. Every year students have gone on to amaze the course organizers—and themselves—with ingenious and beautiful drawings and fractals, and this year is certainly not going to be different.
This year's entries can be found here.
Previous programming competition entries:
6. Course resources
Textbook
-
Haskell: The Craft of Functional Programming, Third Edition.
Simon Thompson. Addison-Wesley, 2011.
Lectures on video
The lectures will be captured on video and made available
here.
Last year's lectures are available
here.
Inf Base
Inf Base is a staffed student help desk. You can make an appointment on the
wiki, or just drop-in to ask questions about the course!
Previous exams
- Mid-semester class exams:
- Mock Exam
- Previous final exams and resit papers:
Previous years' webpages
Previous years' webpages can be found here (note that some links will not work):
Questions & Answers
See the newsgroup or the wiki.
7. Other resources & external links
- An extra exercise sheet covering list comprehensions and recursion:
- Alternative textbooks:
All of these books were also written for beginning students, and may
provide a useful alternative perspective.
- Online material on Haskell:
- Real World Haskell by O'Sullivan, Stewart and Goerzen.
This is an introductory textbook with a practical angle of approach, fully available online.
- A Gentle Introduction to Haskell by Hudak et. al.
It would be good idea for everybody to print out a copy of this
and bring it with you to tutorials/demonstrations as a
reference.
- Two Dozen Short Lessons in Haskell by Rex Page.
This book is available in PostScript and PDF format. To read the
PostScript version outside of the University labs, you may need
to install additional software.
If you can't get a hold of the official textbook, then this one
may be of some help.
- Learn You a Haskell for Great Good by Miran Lipovaca.
An easy introductory web page with lots of examples.
- The
Haskell Reference at ZVON
by Miloslav Nic.
This site is a friendly version of the Haskell Report. It contains
information about all of Haskell's predefined funcions like
drop, take, ord, chr, sum and length. Good
reference website.
- A Tour of the Haskell Standard Prelude
by Bernie Pope and Arjan van IJzendoorn.
Another good introduction to Haskell's predefined functions.
- Video lectures
from Microsoft on Haskell.
- Lecture Notes
and
Exercises
of John Hughes' Introductory Course on Haskell. (See also the old exams at the bottom of the exercises page.)
- www.haskell.org
This site has everything you could possibly want to know about
Haskell, and more! From "A Short Introduction to Haskell" and the
aforementioned "A Gentle Introduction to Haskell" to the
definition of the language, a list of books on the subject, links
to conferences/workshops, and various libraries.
- Online material on pair programming:
- You and Your Research by Richard Hamming
(referenced in Lecture 19).
- Teaching Assistant
Please feel free to email the teaching assistants
with any questions you may have concerning Haskell.
- If you are a Mac user, we recommend downloading the Haskell compiler from here
You will also need to install the necessary libraries. Open a terminal and type
> cabal update
> cabal install QuickCheck GLUT
> echo ":set -fno-ghci-sandbox" > ~/.ghci
- Lecturer
If after consulting all the above resources, you still can't find an answer to your question or
just want to know even more, please email the lecturer.
- The computing society Compsoc run a chatroom for all inf1 courses.
Informatics Teaching Organisation
Courses are administered by the Informatics Teaching Organisation
(ITO), located on the fourth floor of Appleton Tower. Contact the ITO
for adminstrative issues, including changes to lab sessions or
tutorials, using
this
form. When it is inconvenient to use the form, send e-mail to
<ito
@inf.ed.ac.uk>.
