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Comment by kozukumi | Hacker News Reader

WhatsApp seems to be a great example of designing your system with the best tools available. To go from nothing to pretty much being the de-facto modern replacement for SMS in a couple of years is an amazing achievement.

I really need to sit down and spend some time properly learning a functional language. I can hack my way through Haskell code but I do it in a very non-Haskell way. I really need to change that. My primary language is C++ and I am open to any recommendations for what direction to go in :)

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For Erlang, there is the book by Joe Armstrong:

https://pragprog.com/book/jaerlang2/programming-erlang

The problem with learning functional languages is finding pragmatic learning materials.

I would claim F# is currently the most approachable functional language (just my opinion but I have at least toyed with the other mainstream offerings).

My background is also in C++. The F# materials listed helped me personally to develop as a programmer and have made approaching other languages like Erlang easier.

Sestoft's programming language concepts: https://www.itu.dk/~sestoft/plc/

Expert F# 3.0 contains lots of short snippets and examples: http://www.apress.com/9781430246503

Flying frog consultancys materials are steep in price but I found them worth my dime (Visual F# 2010 for Technical Computing and the materials in The F# Journal) http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/index.html

> The problem with learning functional languages is finding pragmatic learning materials.

This is kind of true. But there is a nice community around erlang. I always found good, valueable input at erlangcentral.org and stackoverflow.

I'll also throw Elixir out there for being a much more approachable way into functional languages(and it runs on the Erlang VM to boot).

Also try learnyousomeerlang.com

Try Elixir, it runs on the ErlangVM and has a much nicer syntax, plus metaprogramming through Lisp-style macros, while preserving every feature that makes erlang great.

https://pragprog.com/book/elixir/programming-elixir <-- dave thomas has a great writing style.

Or LFE - Lisp Flavored Erlang - if you prefer Lisp to Rubyesque syntax. Robert Virding, one of the gang along with Joe Armstrong that created Erlang, created LFE.

Any book on Lambda calculus http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Functional-Programming-Ca...

https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-functional-programmi...! is a MOOC in Haskell

I have a list of free Erlang resources: https://gist.github.com/macintux/6349828

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