Journal of Functional Programming 14, pp 113-123, 2004. An earlier version of this paper was presented at Functional and Declarative Programming in Education (FDPE02).
Abstract
We argue that teaching purely functional programming as such in
freshman courses is detrimental to both the curriculum as well as to
promoting the paradigm. Instead, we need to focus on the more general aims
of teaching elementary techniques of programming and essential concepts of
computing. We support this viewpoint with experience gained during several
semesters of teaching large first-year classes (up to 600 students) in
Haskell. These classes consisted of computer science students as well as
students from other disciplines. We have systematically gathered student
feedback by conducting surveys after each semester. This article
contributes an approach to the use of modern functional languages in first
year courses and, based on this, advocates the use of functional languages
in this setting.
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