checking if a list is empty

[harrismh777]

Ian Kelly wrote:
> Well, at least Haskell is probably better as an introductory language
> than Lisp or Scheme.  But what schools actually do this?

http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/teaching/resources/haskell/HugsResources.html
http://research.cs.queensu.ca/home/cisc260/2010w/haskell.html

    These are just two schools that teach functional programming early 
on using Haskell... but there are many.  (google around)

    caveat:  thingks are changing all the time, for instance I notice 
that Margaret Lamb at Queen's University in Ontario hasn't updated her 
page in about a year... so things may be different there for her classes 
than when we were first corresponding...

   ... and I'm also lumping two other languages into this 'category'... 
namely, Scheme, and Erlang.

> perception is that the vast majority of schools use C++ or C# or Java,

    ... that may be the trend now...

> typically relegating functional programming to a single second- or
> third-year course.  Of course it's well known that MIT used to use
> Scheme, but they switched to Python a couple years ago.

     Scheme seems to be very popular in education, based on the 
discussions, as a functional language; but, alas, I've not seen it nor 
played with it ( so can't comment too much, yet ).  I'm glad to hear 
that MIT is using Python now..!

> I don't think a single language is necessarily going to be best for
> all students.

    no doubt...   I can dream can't I ?

> If a math major comes to you wanting to learn some
> programming for theorem-proving, bearing in mind that they probably
> aren't interested in learning more than a single language, would you
> try to start them out with Python, or would you just give them the
> functional language that they're ultimately going to want?

Well, that's just it... learning how to program is essential for all 
disciplines IMHO and learning just one language is not an option. 
Everyone needs a GPL and that's going to be Python... me hopes.  And 
then some majors are going to require special purpose languages that 
meet certain requirements... and functional languages (haskell, erlang, 
scheme) are going to suit that need very well) by the by, don't get me 
wrong... I think Haskell is elegant, one of the best... but, not for 
students with no programming background, nor for those who just don't 
seem to be getting it on the first pass.



kind regards,
m harris