Re: Ada for a programming newb.

[Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com>]

Mark Lorenzen wrote:
> I very strongly disagree with this statement. Functional programming
> is the essence of programming and the absolutely most natural way of
> describing how to solve a problem.
> 
> You can learn the philosophy of functional programming and then be a
> good programmer in any language or you can learn an imperative
> language and be stuck in your "programming-by-side-effect" way of
> thinking.

What rubbish! "Programming-by-side-effect" has been the essence of
computing from the very beginning, from Turing machines to memory-
mapped video displays. FP is a completely alien concept, having no
intuitive correspondence to anything in the real world to make it
amenable to understanding.

When I go to the barber, the result is not a new copy of me with
shorter hair. It's the same old me witha side-effect applied.

By the way, the first and second prize winners of the 2003 ICFP
contest used C++. The Judges' Prize winners used C++ and Dylan.