Re: The state of functional programming

[Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>]

On 28.07.10 17:24, J.s wrote:

> Functional programming languages express ideas at a higher level and
> allow users to focus on the challenge of problem solving instead of
> the process of writing code. A programming language like F# provides a
> �tool bag� of functions that users can pick from to solve their
> problem.   Functional programming includes concepts such as
> immutability to reduce dependencies between components, generics to
> express solutions that work over many different kinds of data, and
> functions as values to make it easy to abstract units of a solution
> into reusable pieces."
> 
> 
> 
> Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Yes, and Grady Booch has said a few things against functional
programming (hype) very recently no less substantiated than the above
collection of claims.

I haven't met anyone who thinks that knowing functional programming style,
in particular familiarity with the consequences of no mutable values
isn't a valuable experience.  As is the experience of so called fusions,
and of mutable variables in functional programming languages (really
functional any longer?): the inevitable consequence of trying to
make a functional program meet the requirements of predictable
SPACE and TIME complexity.

To distinguish the above quote about F# from language marketing,
consider the questions:

"What is an idea at a higher level?"
 (explaining "idea" and "height")

"When one assembles functions a la Hughes (point free style),
how is the thinking process different from that performed
by the OO-programmer assembling classes and their protocols?"

"Regarding OO vs functional, is one good without the other?"
(which one?)


Georg