Advanced Functional Programming

Functional languages represent the leading edge of programming language design, and the primary setting in which new programming concepts are introduced and studied. This module builds upon the introductory module G51FUN Functional Programming, by focussing on a number of more advanced topics in functional programming, including aspects of recent and current research. The precise topics covered will vary from year to year, but will include topics such as the following:

• Programming with effects (monads, state, exceptions, etc);
• Reasoning about programs (proof, transformation and calculation);
• Control flow (continuations, defunctionalization and machines);
• Advanced libraries (domain-specific embedded languages);
• Improving efficiency (tupling, accumulation and fusion);
• Type systems (inference, classes and novel features);
• Functional pearls (short, elegant examples).

Lecture Notes

Lectures will mostly be given at the whiteboard, and students are expected to take their own notes. Some supporting material is available here:

• Introduction
• Review of Haskell
• Solving Sudoku (powerpoint slides)
• Programming with effects
• The real world (source code) - guest lecture by Wouter Swierstra
• Reasoning about programs - chapter 13 of Programming in Haskell
• The zipper (source code)
• Abstract machines (source code)

Textbook

There is no formal textbook required, but the following will be useful for background reading, and some material from the later chapters will be covered:

Coursework

• Noughts and crosses (initial code) - due on Wednesday 12th March
• Monadic compiler (initial code) - due on Thursday 1st May

Useful Information

• Module description;
• Haskell home page;
• Haskell 98 report;
• Hugs home page;
• GHC home page.