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Comment by myegorov | Hacker News Reader

Not to start a flame war, but imho this is my definition of a "terrible book". Of the everything and the kitchen sink variety. By contrast, I very much enjoyed LYAH, not least for its self-effacing humor. Hutton was too dry for me. There's a less well-known "Thinking Functionally with Haskell" book by Richard Bird that is concise and targets the mathematically inclined crowd.

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It is something that is marketed very well. From the sample content, It didn't look interesting to me at all.

LYAH may not be the greatest Haskell tutorial. But it makes an easy read. That means, you are not afraid to go back to it again and again, Which is the crucial aspect of learning anything sufficiently complex or new or both..

I agree re: marketing -- something I had easily fell for. One of the authors has moved onto writing another Haskell book (a "work of art" apparently), but this time my interest, for an intermediate level book, is elsewhere: https://intermediatehaskell.com/ (which would be more informative--thus pedagogically sound--than a work of art).

Lesson learned: don't fall for the marketing of art.

Generally the best way to learn is by actually doing projects: http://www.haskellforall.com/2017/10/advice-for-haskell-begi...

Why is "everything and the kitchen sink" terrible? Thoroughness is appealing. You aren't obligated to read all of it.

I personally favor thin books that present what really matters after having digested it first. Not that there's no place for thick books on my shelves (CLRS among others). I find HaskellWiki/Hoogle better serve the use case that the Haskell Book seems to target.

He of functional programming with bananas etc.?

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