From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,442a61fa28886220 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-09-18 20:17:20 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-out1.nntp.be!propagator2-sterling!news-in-sterling.nuthinbutnews.com!cyclone1.gnilink.net!spamkiller2.gnilink.net!nwrdny03.gnilink.net.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail From: Hyman Rosen User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5b) Gecko/20030901 Thunderbird/0.2 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada for a programming newb. References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <4zuab.5439$U6.3722@nwrdny03.gnilink.net> Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2003 03:17:20 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 162.84.176.54 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verizon.net X-Trace: nwrdny03.gnilink.net 1063941440 162.84.176.54 (Thu, 18 Sep 2003 23:17:20 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 23:17:20 EDT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:42676 Date: 2003-09-19T03:17:20+00:00 List-Id: 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.