Last updated on 7th January 2016

Functional Programming

Graham Hutton
School of Computer Science
University of Nottingham

Module Information

The aim of this module is to teach the basic principles of functional programming, using the modern functional language Haskell. Broadly speaking, functional programming is a style of programming in which the primary method of computation is the application of functions to arguments. Among other features, functional languages offer a compact notation for writing programs, powerful abstraction methods for structuring programs, and a simple mathematical basis that supports reasoning about programs.

Coursework

The coursework for the module comprises five exercise sheets and an extended programming exercise. The courseworks are assessed during the lab sessions, and will be released here at the appropriate points during the module.

Learning Material

Textbook:

Lecture notes:

Chapter 0 - Module introduction
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Chapter 2 - First steps
Chapter 3 - Types and classes
Chapter 4 - Defining functions
Chapter 5 - List comprehensions
Chapter 6 - Recursive functions
Chapter 7 - Higher-order functions
Chapter 9 - Interactive programs
Chapter 10 - Declaring types and classes
Chapter 11 - The countdown problem
Chapter 12 - Lazy evaluation

Useful Resources

Module moodle page (internal version of this page)
Haskell platform (the standard compiler and interpreter)
Standard prelude (some useful library functions)
Hoogle (for searching the libraries)
Haskell home page (for all things Haskell)