Course Description

The primary goal of this type of programming paradigms course is to introduce students to the fundamentals of functional programming using the Haskell and F# (F Sharp) language. You'll pick up a variety of skills and see how they might be applied to the developing process of various programs.

A solid link between mathematics and software design is provided by functional programming. Haskell and other functional programming languages have characteristics that make them appealing for parallel processing, quick software prototyping, and mathematical computations. Programs are treated as mathematical equations in functional programming. This makes it possible to write programs that are both clear and succinct for a variety of applications. Significantly, it enables formal proof methods to be used to establish the desired features of these programs. Their effectiveness can also be increased using the same techniques.

Experience has shown that functional programming approaches can also be utilized to enhance the design of programs written in imperative languages after they have been learnt.

The course serves as an introduction to functional programming concepts. It presents key ideas and related methods for creating programs that are clear and concise. It also describes how to convert them into more effective programs. The course will give students practical experience using current functional programming languages like Scheme and Haskell.

Course Objective(s)

The main objective(s) of the course and the expected outcomes are:

• Learn the fundamentals of functional programming and how to think in functional paradigm terms.
• Using abstraction within the program strucutre.
• Gain the ability to explain and use the recursion (at a glance), as well as being capable to make the difference between recursive process and iterative process.
• Using high-order functions (HOF) and implement complex approaches for different problems.
• What to do when we are dealing with delays in the evaluation for infinite data structures.
• Understanding how the code is evaluated.
• Being able to write complex programs for different topics, such as databases, distributed systems, cryptography, artificial intelligence or machine learning.

Course Structure

Laboratory Structure

Examination

The final mark is composed from mid-terms and final exam. See the details from below.

The mid-terms represents 50% from the final mark.

• 1^st mid-term (10%) - Course: October 31st, 2022
• 2^nd mid-term (20%) - Laboratory: November 14th, 2022
• 3^rd mid-term (20%) - Laboratory: November 28th, 2022

For the 1^st mid-term the student will receive 30 questions, each question will have 3 points (30 * 3p = 90p). For this mid-term test (evaluation) 10p ex-officio point will be received.

The final exam will represent 50% from the final mark.

Bibliography

• Nita, Stefania Loredana, and Marius Mihailescu. Haskell Quick Syntax Reference: A Pocket Guide to the Language, APIs, and Library. Apress L.P., 2019. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4842-4507-1
• Mena, Alejandro Serrano. Practical Haskell: A Real World Guide to Programming. Second edition, Apress, 2019. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4842-4480-7
• Nita, Stefania Loredana, and Marius Mihailescu. Practical Concurrent Haskell: With Big Data Applications. 1st ed. 2017, Apress : Imprint: Apress, 2017. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4842-2781-7
• Learn Haskell Programming - Tutorials Point. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/haskell/index.htm
• Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!, http://learnyouahaskell.com/chapters
• Kurt, Will. Get Programming with Haskell. Manning Publications Co, 2018.
• Hutton, Graham. Programming in Haskell. Second edition, Cambridge University Press, 2016. https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Haskell-Graham-Hutton/dp/1316626229
• Hutton Graham University Web Page and Lectures - http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pszgmh/

C01 - Introduction to Functional Programming

Course objective
In this course we will learn about functional programming, why it is important, its strenghts, advantages and disadvantages, compared with other programming paradigms. We will take into consideration examples from other programming paradigms and languages and compare them with functional programming.

Resources
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C02 - Haskell, GHC, Data Types, and Operators

Course objective
In this course we will learn about Haskell and GHC environment, which are the main data types for Haskell, which are the operators and how they work between expressions and how they are used in the evaluation process.

Resources
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L01 - Applications and Exercises with Lambda Calculus

Laboratory objective
In this laboratory will learn how to resolve exercises using a formal system in mathematical logic for expressing computation based on function abstraction and application utilizing variable binding and substitution, which is known as lambda calculus. It is a general-purpose computational model that can imitate any Turing computer.

Laboratories
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Solutions
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L02 - Exercises with Data Types and Operators

Laboratory objective
Learning the basics for data types and operators, dealing with the main types and the operations between multiple data types. We will learn about the various Haskell operators in this chapter. Similar to other programming languages, Haskell handles several fundamental operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc. in an intelligent manner. Future laboratories will teach us more about various operators and how to use them.

Laboratories
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Solutions
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