Write a Blog >>
ICFP 2018
Sun 23 - Sat 29 September 2018 St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Mon 24 Sep 2018 17:47 - 18:10 at Stifel Theatre - Probabilistic Programming and Learning Chair(s): Michael Sperber

Our department has long been an advocate of the functional-first school of programming and has been teaching Haskell as a first language in introductory programming course units for 20 years. Although the functional style is largely beneficial, it needs to be taught in an enthusiastic and captivating way to fight the unusually high computer science drop-out rates and appeal to a heterogeneous population of students.

This paper reports our experience of restructuring, over the last 5 years, an introductory laboratory course unit that trains hands-on functional programming concepts and good software development practices. We have been using game programming to keep students motivated, and following a methodology that hinges on test-driven development and continuous bidirectional feedback. We summarise successes and missteps, and how we have learned from our experience to arrive at a model for comprehensive and interactive functional game programming assignments and a general functionally-powered automated assessment platform, that together provide a more engaging learning experience for students. In our experience, we have been able to teach increasingly more advanced functional programming concepts while improving student engagement.

Mon 24 Sep

Displayed time zone: Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey change

16:40 - 18:10
Probabilistic Programming and LearningResearch Papers at Stifel Theatre
Chair(s): Michael Sperber Active Group GmbH
16:40
22m
Talk
The Simple Essence of Automatic DifferentiationDistinguished Paper
Research Papers
Conal Elliott Target, USA
DOI
17:02
22m
Talk
Functional Programming for Modular Bayesian Inference
Research Papers
Adam Ścibior University of Cambridge and MPI Tuebingen, Ohad Kammar University of Oxford, Zoubin Ghahramani University of Cambridge
DOI
17:25
22m
Talk
Contextual Equivalence for a Probabilistic Language with Continuous Random Variables and Recursion
Research Papers
Mitchell Wand Northeastern University, USA, Ryan Culpepper Czech Technical University, Theophilos Giannakopoulos BAE Systems, Inc., Andrew Cobb Northeastern University
DOI
17:47
22m
Talk
Teaching How to Program using Automated Assessment and Functional Glossy Games (Experience Report)
Research Papers
José Bacelar Almeira University of Minho & INESC TEC, Alcino Cunha University of Minho and INESC TEC, Portugal, Nuno Macedo University of Minho & INESC TEC, Hugo Pacheco University of Minho, Portugal, José Proença HASLab/INESC TEC & University of Minho
DOI