Thanks for the great responses. My haskell-learning todo list is refreshed and renewed :)<div><br></div><div>I would point out, though, that had I followed a "Learn when needed" philosophy more broadly I would never have come to Haskell or even functional programming in general. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Aran<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 12:33 PM, Andrew Coppin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:andrewcoppin@btinternet.com">andrewcoppin@btinternet.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="im">John Lato wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
I sort of agree with this, with some very large caveats.<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br></div>
Well, yes. If you don't know what a feature does, then you won't know that it solves the problem you have.<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="im">
However, there's a lot to be said for both intellectual curiosity and<br></div>
learning for the sake of knowledge. Just because you may never need<div class="im"><br>
to use a feature doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to understand it.<br>
<br>
</div></blockquote>
<br>
There is that. However, in my experience, most of the advanced techniques tend to be described in language beyond my comprehension. (And most examples seem overly complex - although maybe that's just a reflection of the fact that simple problems don't require sophisticated techniques in the first place.) Having a specific problem to solve can be quite helpful. Unlike an example, you already understand what the problem is, and why it can't easily be solved any other way.<div>
<div></div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
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