Drawing Programs: The Theory and Practice of Schematic Functional Programming describes a diagrammatic (schematic) approach to programming. It introduces a sophisticated tool for programmers who would rather work with diagrams than with text. The language is a complete functional language that has evolved into a representation scheme that is unique. The result is a simple coherent description of the process of modelling with the computer. The experience of using this tool is introduced gradually with examples, small projects and exercises. The new computational theory behind the tool is interspersed between these practical descriptions so that the reasons for the activity can be understood and the activity, in turn, illustrates some elements of the theory Access to the tool, its source code and a set of examples that range from the simple to the complex is free (see www.springer.com/978-1-84882-617-5). A description of the tool’s construction and how it may be extended is also given. The authors’ experience with undergraduates and graduates who have the understanding and skill of a functional language learnt through using schema have also shown an enhanced ability to program in other computer languages. Readers are provided with a set of concepts that will ensure a good robust program design and, what is more important, a path to error free programming.
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From the reviews: “In Drawing Programs, Tom Addis (Univ. of Portsmouth, UK) and Jan Addis (Clarity Support, UK) teach readers how to program a computer using a special language they have developed called Clarity. … Drawing Programs is both a work on programming and a manual for the language. … The numerous illustrations are helpful. Summing Up: Recommended. Researchers and faculty.” (S. L. Tanimoto, Choice, Vol. 47 (11), July, 2010) “The book presents the notion of schematic functional programming and demonstrates not only the concept but also how schematic functional programs can be processed … . A reader … can go through the book quite easily and try to use the constructs and typical patterns of schematic programming, and, in such a way, learn how to use schematic programming and become familiar with it. … a skilled programmer using several programming paradigms can get through the notion of the book in a short time.” (Dušan Kolář, Journal of Functional Programming, Vol. 22 (2), 2012)
Review
Visual programming systems have had a large uptake in industry. However the visual components of such systems have tended to focus on the structure, properties and behaviour of graphical user interfaces and their relationship to textually represented, predominantly imperative, code fragments.
Functional programming has historically appeared to have been more prevalent in the academic computing community. However, it seems to be gaining wider adoption with popular languages such as Python and Ruby supporting the functional paradigm, albeit in an impure form.
The main part of this book is about functional programming and in particular the use of the authors’ graphical functional programming system ‘Clarity’. In Clarity, and in contrast to mainstream ‘visual’ languages, programs are expressed as schematics. The authors argue that functional programming lends itself to graphical schematic representation more advantageously than imperative approaches.
Through the ten chapters of the book, the authors cover, in varying degrees of depth, a wide range of computer programming-related topics, with a natural bias towards functional programming and Clarity. Much of this book is a practical demonstration of the Clarity system and of how the benefits of graphical representations of (functional) computer programs over their textual counterparts may be gained.
There are practical sections describing how to run and use the Clarity system, how to implement distributed systems using Clarity and how to develop extensions to the Clarity system. In addition, the authors describe approaches to the design and development of functional programs and functional programming concepts, such as head and tail recursion, folds and so forth. These sections are supported by extended working examples.
In contrast, there are sections that discuss philosophical topics such as computer program semantics, and more theoretical sections that discuss topics such as functional thinking, artificial intelligence, Bayesian classification and programming systems that deal with uncertainty.
The book is an engaging read and is likely to be of value to anyone interested in computer programming, functional or not. The authors reinforce learning by lots of review questions, and worked through projects and examples. My only criticism is that, on occasion, I thought better signposting was required in order to make clearer the purpose of some of the diversions.
The Clarity system and examples from the book are available for free download.
--8 out of 10, Patrick Hill MBCS CITP, July 2010
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By B. Visscher
Format:Paperback
I have been a programmer for the last 20 years and found this book a breath of fresh air. Having programmed in over 25 different languages/scripts, Clarity is the first language where the plethora of unnecessary and overly complicated constructs is reduced to a finely tuned set that allows programmers to become problem solvers.
The book describes on one hand a functional language with its development environment suitable for novices to the functional paradigm and on the other hand, the book describes some very advanced techniques in reasoning under not just uncertain but also changing conditions suitable for experts. There are multiple reading paths through the book for anyone wishing to focus on just one subject.
The ability to test and program quickly makes the described programming environment, the best prototyping tool I have ever come across. The pattern matching feature of the language is extremely powerful and allows for some very easy solutions to complicated problems. The lack of features to the language stopped me trying to impose structures onto the problem and instead allowed me to focus on the dynamics of the problem solutions.
The philosophical underpinning and ideas as described in this book are unparalleled in richness and ingenuity. The author has an uncanny ability to reinterpret existing papers and interpretations and show them in a new light bridging the gap between theory and practice. A fantastic read for both novices and experts!
The book describes on one hand a functional language with its development environment suitable for novices to the functional paradigm and on the other hand, the book describes some very advanced techniques in reasoning under not just uncertain but also changing conditions suitable for experts. There are multiple reading paths through the book for anyone wishing to focus on just one subject.
The ability to test and program quickly makes the described programming environment, the best prototyping tool I have ever come across. The pattern matching feature of the language is extremely powerful and allows for some very easy solutions to complicated problems. The lack of features to the language stopped me trying to impose structures onto the problem and instead allowed me to focus on the dynamics of the problem solutions.
The philosophical underpinning and ideas as described in this book are unparalleled in richness and ingenuity. The author has an uncanny ability to reinterpret existing papers and interpretations and show them in a new light bridging the gap between theory and practice. A fantastic read for both novices and experts!
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