This is my recommended path for learning Haskell.
Something to keep in mind: don't sweat the stuff you don't understand immediately. Just keep moving.
This PPA is excellent and is what I use on all my Linux dev and build machines: http://launchpad.net/~hvr/+archive/ghc
Specifically:
- sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
- sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:hvr/ghc
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get install cabal-install-1.20 ghc-7.8.2 happy-1.19.3 alex-3.1.3
Then add ~/.cabal/bin:/opt/cabal/1.20/bin:/opt/ghc/7.8.2/bin:/opt/happy/1.19.3/bin:/opt/alex/3.1.3/bin
to your PATH (bash_profile, zshrc, bashrc, etc)
Download the latest binary distributions for cabal and ghc:
GHC is the most popular compiler + package management system for the Haskell language.
Cabal does project management and dependency resolution. It's how you'll install projects, typically into their own sandbox.
https://www.haskell.org/cabal/download.html
Excellent guide here: http://www.davesquared.net/2014/05/platformless-haskell.html
Either Haskell Platform (if you'll need stuff that compiles in dependencies for things like OpenGL) or the aforementioned binary distribution.
http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~cis194/lectures.html Brent Yorgey's course is the best I've found so far and replaces both Yann Esposito's HF&H and the NICTA course. This course is particularly valuable as it will not only equip you to write Haskell but also help you understand parser combinators.
This is Bryan O'Sullivan's online course from the class he teaches at Stanford. If you don't know who he is, take a gander at half the libraries any Haskell application ends up needing and his name is on it. Of particular note if you've already done the Yorgey course are the modules on phantom types, information flow control, language extensions, concurrency, pipes, and lenses.
http://www.scs.stanford.edu/14sp-cs240h/
http://tim.dysinger.net/posts/2014-02-18-haskell-with-emacs.html
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Vim
http://www.stephendiehl.com/posts/vim_haskell.html
https://github.com/kazu-yamamoto/ghc-mod
https://github.com/eagletmt/ghcmod-vim
https://github.com/SublimeHaskell/SublimeHaskell
- http://dev.stephendiehl.com/hask/ (this also covers some basics for Cabal)
Cabal Hell was a problem for Haskell users before the introduction of sandboxes. Installing outside of a sandbox will install into your user package-db. This is not a good idea except for foundational packages like Cabal, alex, and happy. Nothing else should be installed in the user or global package-dbs unless you know what you're doing.
To experiment with a package or start a project, begin by doing cabal sandbox init
in a new directory.
Put briefly:
- Always use sandboxes for installing new packages, building new or existing projects, or starting experiments
- Use
cabal repl
to start a project-scoped ghci instance
You should do Yorgey's course before attempting this: https://github.com/NICTA/course/
LYAH and Real World Haskell (Thanks bos!) are available online.
I recommend RWH as a reference (thick book). The chapters for parsing and monads are great for getting a sense for where monads are useful. Other people have said that they've liked it a lot. Perhaps a good follow-up for practical idioms after you've got the essentials of Haskell down?
Useful for understanding typeclasses in general but also some Hask-specific category theory: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Typeclassopedia
The Hoogle search engine can search by type:
http://www.haskell.org/hoogle/?hoogle=%28a+-%3E+b%29+-%3E+%5ba%5d+-%3E+%5bb%5d
Alternately:
https://www.fpcomplete.com/hoogle
Also Hayoo (which has all of hackage enabled for search by default): http://holumbus.fh-wedel.de/hayoo/hayoo.html
After you're comfortable with Haskell, strongly consider learning Lenses and Prisms, even if just as a "user". You don't need to understand the underlying category for it to be useful.
Seen here: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/lens
If you need JavaScript, you probably want Purescript for generating JS. Purescript not strictly Haskell but it is very similar and quite pleasant.
This book by Simon Marlow is probably the best I've ever read on the topics of Parallelism and Concurrency: http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1230000000929
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Functional_Reactive_Programming
Some of the crazy *-morphism words you've heard are actually about recursion. NB - before tackling this material you should know how to implement foldr for lists and at least one other data structure, such as a tree. (folds are catamorphisms) Knowing how to implement an unfold (anamorphism) for the same will round things out a bit.
This material dovetails with traversable and foldable.
http://patrickthomson.ghost.io/an-introduction-to-recursion-schemes/
http://fho.f12n.de/posts/2014-05-07-dont-fear-the-cat.html - good demonstration of how hylomorphism is the composition of cata and ana.
http://comonad.com/reader/2009/recursion-schemes/ - this field guide is excellent.
http://eprints.eemcs.utwente.nl/7281/01/db-utwente-40501F46.pdf
https://www.fpcomplete.com/user/edwardk/recursion-schemes/catamorphisms
People vastly overestimate the difficulty of using Lens. Anybody comfortable with Functor/Foldable/Traversable (or even just the first one) can leverage lenses and prisms to make their life happier.
If you've ever done something like: (fmap . fmap)
you've were "lensing" in your head.
I recommend these two tutorials/introductions:
https://github.com/ekmett/lens#lens-lenses-folds-and-traversals
If you want to follow up on the type and category theory:
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/tapl/
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/Category_theory
http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Category_theory
https://www.google.com/search?q=Awodey+Category+Theory
http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/sjt/TTFP/
http://swizec.com/blog/week-20-making-ad-hoc-polymorphism-less-ad-hoc/swizec/6564