---
title: Maybe Haskell, our newest book
teaser: 'What would it be like to program in a language without the frustrating concept
  of null? In our new book, Maybe Haskell, we explore exactly this.

  '
tags: haskell,news,books
author: Pat Brisbin
published_on: 2015-02-16
---

For the past few months, we've been working on a book about Haskell.
Specifically, we've been writing about Haskell's `Maybe` data type, which is
used to represent values that may or may not be present. This is the Haskell
alternative to Ruby's `nil`.

You'll find a similar concept in other languages: Scala, OCaml, and most
recently Swift's `Optional`s. If you're interested in Functional Programming,
Haskell, or the idea of living in a null-free world, this book should be a great
introduction for you. It assumes no prior Haskell knowledge and introduces you
to only the parts of the language needed to get into what's really cool about
`Maybe` (and yes, we'll talk about Monads).

**We're very excited to announce that [Maybe Haskell][landing] is ready for
public beta.**

This is an early-stage release. The content is still evolving and you may find
grammatical or technical errors as we continue to write and review. What you're
getting is access to the actual GitHub repository where we're working on the
book. This is a great way to get in early and help shape the content. As we
change and add things, you'll be able to see it in real time, comment on Pull
Requests, or provide feedback as Issues.

To see the current Table of Contents, get a sample of the book, and buy access
to the GitHub repository, please head over to [maybe-haskell.com][landing].

[landing]: http://maybe-haskell.com?utm_source=giant-robots&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=announcement