checking if a list is empty

[Ian Kelly]

On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 6:48 PM, harrismh777 <harrismh777 at charter.net> wrote:
> 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)

The first link is just a collection of Haskell resources, which
indicates that they use it, but not when.  They also have a collection
of Java resources on the department website.  Perusing the handbook, I
see the following modules:

    CO320 Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming

This appears to be their introductory module.  It doesn't say what
language they use, but since they have Java resources on the website
that's what I'm going to guess.

    CO530 Functional Programming

This is listed as an intermediate-level course and is in the 2nd/3rd
year handbook.  The synopsis includes: "Introduction to a Haskell
system (sessions and scripts)."  So no, Kent does not appear to be
teaching Haskell as an introductory course, or even in the first year.

The Queen's course also appears to be a 2nd year class, based on the
number.  Its description includes this: "You will learn two new
languages: Haskell and Prolog. These languages are a bit different
from languages such as *Python* and *Java* that you have learned so
far in Queen's courses" (emphasis added).  Notably, this class isn't
even focused on functional programming; it's an introduction to
programming paradigms other than the imperative one.

So far, neither of these universities support your claim that "kids
today are dumped into a first comp sci course in programming and
plopped in-front of a Hugs interactive shell and then are expected to
learn programming and be successful by trying to grasp pure functional
programming in Haskell(!) in a ten to 12 week term".