carlton@husc7.HARVARD.EDU (david carlton) (02/23/90)
Tried to post an official call for discussion earlier... Pnews couldn't
deal with moderated newsgroups, so I sent it to announce-newgroups@wherever,
as the group creation regs told me to do. But nothing seems to have shown
up, and it's been a while, so am just posting this to news.groups, and am
hoping that people don't mind this slight lapse of protocol. Apologies if
the other message shows up as well...
The question has come up of what we mean by functional languages. When
pressed for a definition of them, I come up with something like
i) functions are first class objects. absolutely necessary.
ii) there really _shouldn't_ be any side effects... yes, lisp and
scheme are in some (very important) sense functional, but once you
start using setq/set!, they lose a certain je ne sais quoi...
iii) and lazy evaluation is really nice, too.. though not absolutely
necessary.
iv) in sum, functional languages are really the lambda calculus in
drag.
I would be willing to define functional languages for the purpose of the
group as languages which satisfy i) and ii); so languages in which
functions are first class objects, and in which there are no side effects.
This would exclude lisp and scheme (which have their own newsgroups
anyways) and ml (sorry...) but would at least allow the functional core of
the above, as well as all of your other favorite languages (hope, miranda,
haskell, etc.) What do people think about that definition? It seems to be
what we are converging on, anyways.
And what about the name? Somebody else suggested comp.functional,
on the analogy of comp.object; I myself prefer comp.lang.functional, but
what do others think?
David Carlton
carlton@husc4.harvard.edu
husc6!husc4!carltoncarlton@husc9.harvard.edu (david carlton) (02/23/90)
In <1830@skye.ed.ac.uk>, jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes: >In <1921@husc6.harvard.edu>, carlton@husc7.HARVARD.EDU (david carlton) writes: >> i) functions are first class objects. absolutely necessary. >> ii) there really _shouldn't_ be any side effects... yes, lisp and >> I would be willing to define functional languages for the purpose of >> the group as languages which satisfy i) and ii); so languages in which >> functions are first class objects, and in which there are no side >> effects. This would exclude lisp and scheme (which have their own >> newsgroups anyways) and ml (sorry...) but would at least allow the >> functional core of the above, as well as all of your other favorite >> languages (hope, miranda, haskell, etc.) >I think the group should be for functional programming and not just >for functional programming in pure functional languages. It should >not exclude the functional aspects of languages such as Lisp, Scheme, >and ML. Sorry if I was unclear about this... it's fine with me if the functional aspects of those languages get discussed. Like I said, it would allow the functional core of scheme, lisp, ML. Heck, I use scheme's notation myself most of the time when writing out things on paper - I think it's pretty. David Carlton carlton@husc4.harvard.edu husc6!husc4!carlton
jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) (02/24/90)
In <1921@husc6.harvard.edu>, carlton@husc7.HARVARD.EDU (david carlton) writes: > i) functions are first class objects. absolutely necessary. > ii) there really _shouldn't_ be any side effects... yes, lisp and > I would be willing to define functional languages for the purpose of > the group as languages which satisfy i) and ii); so languages in which > functions are first class objects, and in which there are no side > effects. This would exclude lisp and scheme (which have their own > newsgroups anyways) and ml (sorry...) but would at least allow the > functional core of the above, as well as all of your other favorite > languages (hope, miranda, haskell, etc.) I think the group should be for functional programming and not just for functional programming in pure functional languages. It should not exclude the functional aspects of languages such as Lisp, Scheme, and ML.
root@kunivv1.sci.kun.nl (Privileged Account) (02/26/90)
In article <1921@husc6.harvard.edu> carlton@husc4.harvard.edu (david carlton) writes: >The question has come up of what we mean by functional languages. When >pressed for a definition of them, I come up with something like > i) functions are first class objects. absolutely necessary. > ii) there really _shouldn't_ be any side effects... yes, lisp and > scheme are in some (very important) sense functional, but once you > start using setq/set!, they lose a certain je ne sais quoi... >I would be willing to define functional languages for the purpose of the >group as languages which satisfy i) and ii); so languages in which >functions are first class objects, and in which there are no side effects. >This would exclude lisp and scheme Why not dedicate the newsgroup to the *functional aspects* of programming languages? This makes it clear that talking about LISP in the group is OK, as long as you don't RPLACA etc. I even like to mention the functional subset of Pascal, every now and then. A newsgroup comp.lang.functional in which ml is not used seems quite senseless to me, anyway. It's my impression that ml is *the* language most people do their functional programming in. You see, it's the paradigm I'm stressing. So I suppose in that view, comp.functional would be better. Eerke Boiten, Department of Informatics, K.U.Nijmegen Toernooiveld, 6525 AD Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Tel. +31-80-612236. eerke@cs.kun.nl
mph@lion.inmos.co.uk (Mike Harrison) (03/03/90)
In article <1110@kunivv1.sci.kun.nl> eerke@cs.kun.nl (Eerke Boiten) writes: >In article <1921@husc6.harvard.edu> carlton@husc4.harvard.edu (david carlton) writes: >>The question has come up of what we mean by functional languages. When >Why not dedicate the newsgroup to the *functional aspects* of >programming languages? This makes it clear that talking about LISP in >the group is OK, as long as you don't RPLACA etc. I wouldn't object to RPLACA or RPLACD, which can be used to overcome the lack of Letrec etc. The use of prog, loop & GO !!! should not be encouraged in the group. The paradigm that I like is (to quote someone) "lambda calculus in drag". I don't care what the name of the group is (as long as I get it and can find it), but I strongly support its creation. Mike, Michael P. Harrison - Software Group - Inmos Ltd. UK. ----------------------------------------------------------- UK : mph@inmos.co.uk with STANDARD_DISCLAIMERS; US : mph@inmos.com use STANDARD_DISCLAIMERS;