Editing AMI Tool (section)

== FAQ ==

=== Why Haskell? ===
Because the Haskell code to parse an AMI parameter string looks like this:

 amiToken = do skipJunk
               symbol (char '(')
               lbl <- symbol (identifier <?> "label")
               do tokens <- try (symbol (many1 amiToken))
                 symbol (char ')')
                 return (lbl, Tokens tokens)
                <|> do vals <- sepBy (quotedVal <|> many (noneOf " )")) (char ' ')
                      symbol (char ')')
                      return (lbl, Vals vals)

And for the following reasons:
* It is a modern, strongly typed, functional language, which means we:
** can think at a higher level of abstraction when coding,
** are alerted to more of our programming errors at compile time,
** don't have to do as much memory housekeeping, and
** get to write less code.
* It has a very good compiler, so we don't have the same deployability and/or performance issues we have with interpreted languages, such as Python.

=== Will we get the performance we need out of ''AMI_Getwave'' if it's written in Haskell? ===
Not yet. The most recent source code submission to GitHub ''does'' include the AMI_Getwave function, but its performance is 10x worse than the equivalent C code. I'm investigating...

=== Okay, I'm interested; how do I quickly learn Haskell? ===
Grab a copy of [http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Haskell-Graham-Hutton/dp/0521692695/ref=cm_lmf_tit_3/188-8557920-6692504 this book], and work through the chapters, doing the problems at the end of each. I will make my own answers to these problems available to anyone, whom asks.

=== I've made it through the book, above, but it's rather academic; how do I do real practical things with Haskell? ===
Grab a copy of [http://www.amazon.com/Real-World-Haskell-Bryan-OSullivan/dp/0596514980/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1/188-8557920-6692504 this book], and keep it by your side always. (I sleep with mine. ;-) )