An introduction to functional programming through Lambda calculus

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1. mkw5053Aug 2023
   If anyone is looking for a book on lambda calculus, I really enjoyed An Introduction to Functional Programming Through Lambda Calculus by Greg Michaelson [1]

   [1] https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Functional-Programming-C...

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2. smclNov 2022
   "An Introduction to Functional Programming Through Lambda Calculus" by Greg Michaelson - takes you on a journey from very basic lambda calculus, to how that evolves quite naturally into an ML-like language: https://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~greg/books/gjm.lambook88.pdf

   We covered lambda calculus at university (at HW actually) and I'd played with SML/NJ and OCaml before. But seeing the lambda calculus abstractions being constructed over and over to create numbers (which I'd covered) and types and things, then finally become recognisable as ML was a real "ahaaa" moment for me.

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3. rramadassApr 2022
   I think anybody who wants to understand Functional Programming should start with Lambda Calculus.

   I highly recommend An Introduction to Functional Programming Through Lambda Calculus by Greg Michaelson.

   You can then see how to express Functional Techniques in your language of choice (i.e. one you already know well eg; Functional Programming in C++ by Ivan Cukic) before learning a new Functional Language. This is to avoid the confusion in syntax/semantic expression of unfamiliar concepts which is a bit too much for a beginning student to handle simultaneously.

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4. arisbe__Feb 2022
   An Introduction to Functional Programming Through Lambda Calculus by Greg Michaelson really spells out the lambda calculus.

   Regarding combinators the famous intro is the latter half of Raymond Smullyan's To Mock a Mockingbird.

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5. jumanjisamaJun 2021
   I have good experience with this book: An Introduction to Functional Programming Through Lambda Calculus https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Functional-Programming-C...

   It starts with the general rules of lambda calculus, then build up some basic functions (like in the PDF linked in this thread) and continues to build data types like Natural Numbers, List, String, Tree and operators for manipulating them. The book also explains about the evaluation methods as well as covering how ML and LISP uses lambda calculus.

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6. e19293001Jul 2020
   Study lambda calculus first.

   An Introduction to Functional Programming Through Lambda Calculus

   Book by Greg Michaelson

   It's amazing it was published 31 years ago (1989) which shows that it's a timeless book to read.

   This has been referenced from discussions a couple of times:

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6093386

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3851352

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11578961

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10714770

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=773369

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16973546

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14395620

   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13211603

   To quote a SO answer on why learn lambda calculus[0]:

   If you want to program in any functional programming language, it's essential. I mean, how useful is it to know about Turing machines? Well, if you write C, the language paradigm is quite close to Turing machines -- you have an instruction pointer and a current instruction, and the machine takes some action in the current state, and then ambles along to the next instruction.

   In a functional language, you simply can't think like that -- that's not the language paradigm. You have to think back to lambda calculus, and how terms are evaluated there. It will be much harder for you to be effective in a functional language if you don't know lambda calculus.

   [0] - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/114581/how-helpful-is-kn...

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