dorai@helma.rice.edu (Dorai Sitaram) (02/21/90)
In article <1797@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes: >In article <1619@husc6.harvard.edu> carlton@husc4.harvard.edu (david carlton) writes: >> >>What do people think about creating a comp.lang.functional news groups, for >>the discussion of functional programming languages? > >I'm in favor. Indeed, I was surprised that there wasn't such a group >already. The only problem would be if we later wanted a ML group, >say. Should it have to be comp.lang.functional.ml? I'm tentatively in favor too; however, "functional" is about the most ambivalent, and consequently useless, term in programming languages. The two common (often incompatible) views seem to be i) A language which has higher-order functions; ii) Ditto, but which very definitely eschews "assignment." In apparent contrast, "imperative" languages support "assignment," and are perceived oftentimes, why, I don't know, as definitely having no higher-order functions (procedures). Thus we have the paradox of Scheme and ML being both "imperative" ("non-functional," taking definition ii)) as well as "functional" (taking definition i)). It may be we should choose another name. --dorai -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------