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Informatics 1 – Functional Programming

Contents

1. People
2. Course description
3. Schedule
4. Examination
5. Programming competition
6. Course resources
7. Other resources & external links

1. People

Lecturer:	Philip Wadler	<wadler @ inf.ed.ac.uk>
Teaching Assistant:	Willem Heijltjes	<w.b.heijltjes @ sms.ed.ac.uk>

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.

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 1
• Tuesdays, 11:10–12:00am, Appleton Tower, Lecture Theatre 3

Drop-in lab

Drop-in lab is held daily at computer lab ``West'' or ``South'' on level 5 of Appleton Tower.

	Mondays	3–5pm	West
	Tuesdays	2–5pm	West
	Wednesdays	2–5pm	West
	Thursdays	2–5pm	South
	Fridays	3–5pm	West

Tutorials

Tutorial groups with their times and places can be found here.

Tutorials are held in groups of 8–12, 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 are available from 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 9 and Friday 10 October. Exercises will be made available at least a week before they're due.

Schedule

Week		Subject	Lecture notes	Reading assignment		Tutorial exercises	Solutions
1.	22–26 Sept		*lectures start in week 2*			*Tutorials start in week 3*
2.	29 Sept–3 Oct	Lab Week	lect01.pdf lect02.pdf examples	1–3	(pp. 1–52)	LabWeekExercise.pdf labweekexercise.hs	solutions
3.	6–10 Oct	Lists and Recursion	lect03.pdf	4–5	(pp. 53–95)	Tutorial1.pdf tutorial1.zip	solutions
4.	13–17 Oct	More fun with recursion	lect05.pdf	6–7	(pp. 96–134)	Tutorial2.pdf tutorial2.hs	solutions
5.	20–24 Oct	Review	lect05.pdf lect08.pdf	8–9	(pp. 135–166)	Tutorial3.pdf tutorial3.hs	solutions
6.	27–31 Oct	Review	*Class Test* lect10.hs			Tutorial4.pdf tutorial4.hs	solutions
7.	3–7 Nov	Higher-order functions	lect11.pdf lect12.pdf	10–11	(pp. 167–209)	Tutorial5.pdf tutorial5.hs	solutions
8.	10–14 Nov	Algebraic data types	lect13.pdf	12–14	(pp. 210–279)	Tutorial6.pdf tutorial6.hs	solutions
9.	17–21 Nov	Type classes	lect15.pdf	15–17	(pp. 280–382)	Tutorial7.pdf tutorial7.zip	solutions
10.	24–28 Nov	Arithmetic, Data types	*Mock exam* lect17.pdf	18–20	(pp. 383–441)	Tutorial8.pdf tutorial8.hs
11.	1–5 Dec	Complexity, Logic	lect19.pdf lect20.pdf			mock.pdf mock.hs
12.	8–12 Dec	Exam Week 1	*Final exam*
13.	15–19 Dec	Exam Week 2

4. Examination

Examination is done through two programming tests, held in the computer labs. The mid-semester programming test contributes 10% towards the final mark, the final exam contributes 90%. The final exam is held on Monday 8 December, in the examination period of the semester.

• Monday 27 October: Programming Class Test (10%) (solutions) (Lord Tennyson's alternative solutions)
• Monday 8 December: Final Exam (90%) – Appleton Tower Computer Lab, 14:30–16:30

Notes

• To help practice for the exam there is also a mock exam, currently 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.

Previous programming competition entries:

• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005

6. Course resources

Textbook

Haskell: The Craft of Functional Programming, Second Edition. Simon Thompson. Addison-Wesley, 1999.

Previous exams

• Mid-semester class exams:
  • 2007 (solutions)
  • 2006 (solutions)
  • 2005 (solutions)
  • 2004 (solutions)
• Previous final exams and resit papers:
  • 2007
  • 2006
  • 2005
  • 2004

Questions & Answers

See the newsgroup or the wiki.

7. Other resources & external links

1. Alternative textbooks: All of these books were also written for beginning students, and may provide a useful alternative perspective.
   • Programming in Haskell by Graham Hutton. Concise and elegant, a bit more formal in its development than Thompson.
   • The Haskell School of Expression by Paul Hudak. Uses multimedia to demonstrate Haskell programming.
   • Introduction to Functional Programming using Haskell, Second Edition by Richard Bird. This is more advanced than Thompson and best suited to students with a good background in mathematics. It is Wadler's favorite of the books listed. (NB: Wadler is a co-author of the first edition!)
2. Online material on Haskell:
   • 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.
   • Haskell Reference 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.
   • Lecture Notes of John Hughes' Introductory Course on Haskell.
   • 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.
3. Online material on pair programming:
   • "All I really need to know about pair programming I learned in Kindergarten." Laurie A. Williams, Robert R. Kessler. Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, 43(5):108–114, May 2005.
4. Teaching Assistant
   Please feel free to email the teaching assistant with any questions you may have concerning Haskell.
5. 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.