Home » forums » LtU Forum

10 Years of Purely Functional Data Structures

I'm usually a lurker here, but I thought LtU readers might be interested in a post on my blog, looking back on 10 years of my book Purely Functional Data Structures (published in 1998).

By Chris Okasaki at 2008-02-08 18:46 | LtU Forum | previous forum topic | next forum topic | other blogs | 22437 reads

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Congratulations!

It holds an honored spot on my bookcase. I consider it one of my "bibles."

By James Iry at Fri, 2008-02-08 18:47 | login or register to post comments

Edison library

FYI, many of the data structures discussed in the book are available in the Edison library. Edison is written in (the GHC dialect of) Haskell.

By Rob Dockins at Fri, 2008-02-08 21:40 | login or register to post comments

I've seen it on many a bookshelf

How many other algorithm texts provide materials that by default scale to a distributed setting (modulo changing the assumptions of the analyses)? 'Nuf said

By carter at Sun, 2008-02-10 20:17 | login or register to post comments

The power of laziness

This book was a revelation to me. It opened my eyes to the real power of laziness when used right. Not everywhere by default, but used exactly in the right places. Section 4.5.8 in CTM is a hommage to PFDS.

By Peter Van Roy at Fri, 2008-02-15 08:13 | login or register to post comments

One of My Best Buys

I'm going to have to ditto Peter Van Roy here: I really underestimated the power of purely functional data structures until I bought this book. It most definitely is a classic in the field and a must-read for functional programmers, even (especially?) in impure languages.

By Paul Snively at Fri, 2008-02-15 13:29 | login or register to post comments

PFDS Revisited

Finally got around to going through the book in a more methodical manner - translating the code to Oz. Of the books I've attempted translations on, this by far was the most seamless - (though that might just be a function of the similarities between Standard ML and Oz). The code in the book is well thought out and concise. The book itself is not encyclopedic in nature, though the example data structures are well chosen and explored.

Does anyone have another recommendation for an algorithm/data structures book aimed at Functional Programming? I have tried to dive into Knuth and CLRS, but both are firmly entrenched in state. I did look into Algorithms: A Purely Functional Programming Approach but it appears to out of print - and targeted more towards teaching Haskell in particular rather than FP algorithms in general.

By Chris Rathman at Tue, 2008-10-07 19:29 | login or register to post comments

A book I've wondered about

but never read: The Functional Approach to Data Management edited by Gray, Kershberg, King, and Poulovasssilis. A collection of papers rather than a solitary work, but it looks interesting.

Anyone read this (or the papers therein)?

By Scott Johnson at Tue, 2008-10-07 21:24 | login or register to post comments

a recommendation on an FP algorithms book

(I know I'm answering a comment that's nearly four years old, but for future readers' sakes...)

Pearls of Functional Algorithm Design seems in line with what you want. I haven't read it yet, but I intend to in the near-ish future.

By Josh Tilles at Sat, 2012-08-04 01:52 | login or register to post comments

The Fall and Rise of FP

As seen in '98: The Fall and Rise of FP, Lins, R. D.. Ten years old paper, fifty years old paradigm, time for a new paper? ;-)

By marco at Wed, 2008-10-08 15:24 | login or register to post comments

Flattening Combinators: Surviving Without Parentheses

I was looking at combinator machines.

Funny, a functional pearl Flattening Combinators: Surviving Without Parentheses, Okasaki C.

By marco at Wed, 2008-10-08 17:09 | login or register to post comments