Re: The state of functional programming

["(see below)" <yaldnif.w@blueyonder.co.uk>]

On 28/07/2010 17:40, in article g24nvegdi17t$.1azxwn1rwjixi$.dlg@40tude.net,
"Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:

>> "Q: What is functional programming?
>> 
>> 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.
> 
> This claim was made for each and every programming paradigm. It need to be
> substantiated, and especially for FP, which does not look very promising at
> all.

Indeed, it has been "promising", but not delivering, for a very long time.

>> Functional programming includes concepts such as
>> immutability to reduce dependencies between components,
> 
> How is immutability to reduce dependence? An immutable argument must be
> taken from somewhere. And immutable results does not even exist. He
> probably meant side effects. ... And the
> whole computing is about side effects. Programming is how side effects can
> be engineered.

Precisely. Except that it is about *effects*, just plain *effects*.
The "side" is propagandistic scare-language added by the FP fundamentalists.
(I originally spelled that "fundamnetalists" -- Freudian slip 8-).

> FP is yet another attempt to make programming declarative. That won't
> happen until last programmer dies.

8-)

I was at a short talk given by one of the leading FP propagandists.
He drew an S-curve depicting technological penetration against time, and
admitted that FP was still at the bottom left, far from lift-off. After 50
years! (McCarthy's "Recursive functions of symbolic expressions and their
computation by machine, Part I" was published in 1960. We still seem to be
waiting for Part II: "real-world relevance".)

-- 
Bill Findlay
<surname><forename> chez blueyonder.co.uk