Re: The state of functional programming

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:09:17 +0000 (UTC), Warren wrote:

> Each collection of languages best solve problems in their 
> domain of applicability.

That reminds me someone's saying about 5GL in early 90's: "if 5GL is an
answer what was the question?"

What are the domains of poor languages? Since they must exist, but cannot
be observed, then in some outer dimension. Which is another proof that the
Universe must be multidimensional... (:-))

> For my money, FP still is less generally effective because
> it relies on special tricks/algorithms to narrow down the
> huge number of paths for a solution.

This universally applies to all declarative languages.

> If the tricks/algorithms
> do apply, then it works. For all other situations it is either
> wrong or impractical (takes too long etc.)

The problem is that any real system never belongs to a narrow domain. The
domain specific schism leads to the components in different paradigms
unable to talk to each other. Any gain one might get through applying
domain specific solutions is quickly spent on developing tons of software
needed to hold the mess together.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de