Introduction To Functional Programming Prentice Hall International Series In Computing Science __EXCLUSIVE__

I do not assume familiarity with Haskell, and have tried to make this article mostlyself-contained. This is hard to do well, and requires that you take some of the details onfaith for now. See [Thompson 1996], [Birdand Wadler 1987] and [Hudak and Fasel 1992] forintroductions to functional programming in general and Haskell in particular and [Hudak et al 1992] for reference. Another Haskell resource ishaskell.org on the web.

As shown above, the distinction between software and hardware is not asharp one. A different ontological approach to computational systemsrelies on the role of abstraction. Abstraction is a crucial element incomputer science, and it takes many different forms. Goguen &Burstall (1985) describe some of this variety, of which the followingexamples are instances. Code can be repeated during programming, bynaming text and a parameter, a practice known as proceduralabstraction. This operation has its formal basis in the abstractionoperation of the lambda calculus (see the entry on the lambda calculus) and it allows a formal mechanism known as polymorphism (Hankin 2004).Another example is typing, typical of functional programming, whichprovides an expressive system of representation for the syntacticconstructors of the language. Or else, in object-oriented design,patterns (Gamma et al. 1994) are abstracted from the common structuresthat are found in software systems and used as interfaces between theimplementation of an object and its specification.

Programs can be understood as technical artifacts because programminglanguages are defined, as any other artifact, on the basis of bothfunctional and structural properties (Turner 2014, 2018 ch. 5).Functional properties of (high level) programming languages areprovided by the semantics associated with each syntactic construct ofthe language. Turner (2014) points out that programming languages canindeed be understood as axiomatic theories only when their functionallevel is isolated. Structural properties, on the other hand, arespecified in terms of the implementation of the language, but notidentified with physical components of computing machines: given asyntactic construct of the language with an associated functionaldescription, its structural property is determined by the physicaloperations that a machine performs to implement an instruction for theconstruct at hand. For instance, the assignment construct \(x := E\)is to be linked to the physical computation of the value of expression\(E\) and to the placement of the value of \(E\) in the physicallocation \(x\).

This course is designed to introduce life science students,that is to say, going-to-be biologists, physicians, biotechnologistsand maybe others, to solving real-life problems (such as DNA sequencehandling and analysis). Emphasis will be on paradigms (imperative /OO, functional, declarative). Although -- in order not to frightenpeople -- the official announcement mentions only Python, Haskell willbe presented as THE purely functional language, and all solutions maybe presented in either Python, Haskell or Java. I am very curiousabout the feedback I'll get, and maybe next term we shall focus moreon Haskell. What I'd really need, though, is some life science relatedpackage for Haskell, such as BIOPYTHON and BIORUBY.

Foundational principles of computer science for students with no computing background that are interested in a related career. Big ideas of computing explored, including programming through use of sequential, conditional, iterative logic. Good computational practices, problem solving, and organization discussed. 2b1af7f3a8