Best resources to learn haskell with mastering xmonad-configuration in mind

Question

I use xmonad as window manager and I love it. However the configuration for me is a bit wired because I just copied snippets together to make it do what I want. The problem is that I didn't understand most of the haskell code it used.

So what literature, tutorials or online lectures do recommend to learn just enough haskell syntax and concepts to understand and master xmonad-configuration. The point of my question is not, how to learn haskell in general but what would be a minimal and most time efficient way to achieve my goal.

The ideal thing would be a haskell course which explains haskell syntax and concepts with examples from xmonad-config but I didn't find such a tutorial.

I only found this link to a video but it seems not available anymore: http://weblogs.asp.net/podwysocki/archive/2008/03/27/fringedc-march-2008-video-now-online-haskell-and-xmonad-extensibility.aspx

My experience of Haskell and xmonad is that the most efficient way to understand configuring xmonad is through learning Haskell proper first. I tried to learn "just enough" Haskell to be able to configure xmonad, but it didn't work out very well. If you constantly think, "But will this be necessary for configuring xmonad?" you get into a "Will this be on the test?" learning state of mind, which isn't efficient for learning at all. — kqr, Oct 13 '13 at 11:22

DavidT · Answer 1 · 2013-10-13T08:49:43.900

4

I found these two videos (featuring Simon Peyton Jones - SPJ) to give a wonderful overview of Haskell in the context of XMondad. SPJ is also one of the creators of Haskell and a key figure in the Haskell community. Well worth a watch: http://blip.tv/oreilly-open-source-convention/oscon-2007-simon-peyton-jones-a-taste-of-haskell-part-i-329701

EDIT blip tv is currently declining to play this vid, which is a shame. Sorry.

More generally, I find Learn You a Haskell (for great good) to be a very accessible intro to Haskell (but not XMonad per se).

More links to XMonad papers, docs, commentaries, tutorials, etc here: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/XMonad

edited Oct 13 '13 at 08:49

answered Oct 13 '13 at 08:31

DavidT

77
7

Thanks. Does anybody know another source for this video? – student Oct 13 '13 at 12:46
Part II does work. Perhaps it would be a good idea if everybody interested in this would write a short mail to blip.tv to ask if they could reupload it. – student Oct 13 '13 at 18:17
Here is part one on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLj1QV11o9g – ChromaticRanger Apr 25 '21 at 09:08

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 14 '13 at 11:08

You don't need to know much Haskell to configure XMonad, unless you want to do some really fancy stuff. You don't need to learn about monads to do the basic configuration. The first 7 chapters of Real World Haskell (which you can read freely online) should tell you everything you need.

The most difficult part of XMonad configuration isn't really the Haskell stuff, it's understanding the API for XMonad and the various xmonad-contrib modules. The haddock documentation for many modules will give a sample of the change you need to make to xmonad.hs in order to use the module. And if it doesn't, feel free to contact the author.

The other difficulty with XMonad is that many of the configuration examples on the web site and floating around the web are out of date.

So in short, learn Haskell because you want to (I highly recommend it), but that's only about a third of the battle for understanding XMonad configuration.

To understand XMonad in more depth, I recommend the jekor videos part1 and part2.

Best resources to learn haskell with mastering xmonad-configuration in mind

2 Answers2