Should functional programming be taught before imperative programming? [closed]

Answer 1

There has to be an historical angle to this (showing my age) for the curriculums in school. Functional was all I had to learn when I started.

But putting that aside, you have to start somewhere so one of them has to be first. If you start with imperative then there will be things you reach for that wont be there when you learn functional and you'll have to get used to doing things differently. If you start with functional and move onto imperative then you'll have to get used to learning new concepts/constructs and remembering that they are there it use.

Whenever you are programming you are trying to solve a problem. It is good to have both in your toolbox to reach for to solve the problem at hand. That's why I think it would be best to start with imerative and then learn functional: if you find yourself reaching for something not there that's indicative of having chosen the wrong tool to solve your problem.

Other than that methinks it's a toss up.

Answer 2

Many (most ?) schools teach functionnal programming. Very few teach it first tough, for many reasons.

• Most development environments for functionnal languages suck, and require extensive programming knowledge to use adequately. This is becoming less and less true, but we're still far away from Visual Studio for Haskell.

• It's harder to jump in the 'flashy stuff'. GUI toolkits and libs suck for most functionnal languages. Showing stuff on-screen and rewarding the student is important.

• Self-taught programmers tend to gravitate to imperative/OO languages for historical reasons. Availability of BASIC in their youth, knowing that their favorite game was written in C or C++, you name it.

• Simple resources and tutorials for functional programming languages are harder to come by. Compare the number of C# samples to Lisp samples on Code Project. Keep in mind that Lisp is over 5 times as old.

Answer 3

Edit: What follows reflects the original title, "Why is functional programming not taught in schools," Schools have teachers, not professors. Schoolteachers do not write their own textbooks.

The textbook companies from which the teachers are allowed to purchase their materials are the largest problem. The textbook companies are quick to jump on "the next big thing", which was OOP a few years ago. Functional programming has fallen by the wayside. Many teachers cannot or are not allowed to teach a course without a textbook, so the course selection generally follows the availability of textbooks from the big vendors.

Answer 4

It could possibly be a mindshare issue, as most teachers/professors probably learned imperative styles first as well.

Also, I would guess that there is far larger body of work available for teaching imperitive styles.

Answer 5

I think, it should, yes.

Also - no console applications and no "color palette mixers", but unit tests first.

Only if the students behave well and write test cases with extremely high coverage, they MAY be allowed to have a quick look at how to read characters from keyboard.

In my opinion, most bad coding practices (code smells, antipatterns) come from a total ignorance towards the theory and best practices.

So - teach them F# first, forbid the use of console i / o and GUIs and only use unit tests.

Second, teach them imperative / functional mixed style in an OOP context with full use and explanation of design patterns.

Then - and ONLY then they can try to put clickybuttons somewhere, maybe as a reward. But theory and good coding practices first. Otherwise we create the next generation of "RAD" - victims that can't even use indentation correctly and mistaken ctrl+c / ctrl+v for software development.

Answer 6

Functional programming is taught in most universities. Part of the reason it's not taught in high school is probably due to the "Functional programming is to hard" myth.