Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good
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Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good
#2The thing that got me really interested in learning Haskell was the realization that something like 90% of the nasty bugs that I fixed in production over the years would be have been impossible in a pure functional language.
The thing that slows me down is the prospect of actually getting paid to write Haskell, and my doubts about it's ultimate suitability for iterate-quickly, fail-fast software world.
But reading this article reinvigorates me. Pure functional programming may be much harder, but its rigor allows for more powerful abstractions. Grokking those abstractions is no doubt useful regardless of what language you're using.
Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good
#3It is worth noting that there are a few other paradigms that can change the way you think of programming - recently there was a post providing a good overview of languages that will make you learn some new abstractions, functional programming being one of them: http://blog.fogus.me/2011/08/14/perlis-languages/
Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good
#4[deleted]
Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good
#5This is the lie that every functional programmer has perpetuated for the last 50 years since the dawn of Lisp - that somehow, automagically, productivity or effectiveness of programmers increase with the use of functional languages.
It's the biggest lie in the programming world, and it was designed to make the uber-geeks of this world, those people that you walk around the block just to avoid saying hello to because you know they are deeply and profoundly anti-social, feel good about themselves, to feel special, as though they have the "upper hand" that other normal people who deliberately choose other languages over purely functional ones.
There is value in learning how to think recursively, but a lot of programming, especially systems programming doesn't need to have its for loops transformed into recursive functions, or its addition operators into primitive recursive functions.
I am sick and tired of people expounding on the alleged efficacy and efficiency of functional languages and I wish they would just STFU once and for all and go back to their porn intermezzos between their functional programming spurts.
Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good
#6FP is becoming the new OOP. People who don't understand its original meaning are misinterpreting it and incorrectly expounding its usefulness. Newcomers are not grasping how it fits into the bigger picture. Be cautious.
Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good
#7FP is becoming the new OOP. People who don't understand its original meaning are misinterpreting it and incorrectly expounding its usefulness. Newcomers are not grasping how it fits into the bigger picture. Be cautious.
Care to elaborate?
Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good
#8This is the lie that every functional programmer has perpetuated for the last 50 years since the dawn of Lisp - that somehow, automagically, productivity or effectiveness of programmers increase with the use of functional languages. It's the biggest lie in the programming world, and it was designed to make the uber-geeks of this world, those people that you walk around the block just to avoid saying hello to because…
I'm not a FP-fan boy (yet), but it seems you have a very limited view of FP. It's not just recursion...
Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good
#9This is the lie that every functional programmer has perpetuated for the last 50 years since the dawn of Lisp - that somehow, automagically, productivity or effectiveness of programmers increase with the use of functional languages. It's the biggest lie in the programming world, and it was designed to make the uber-geeks of this world, those people that you walk around the block just to avoid saying hello to because…
[deleted]
Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good
#10This is the lie that every functional programmer has perpetuated for the last 50 years since the dawn of Lisp - that somehow, automagically, productivity or effectiveness of programmers increase with the use of functional languages. It's the biggest lie in the programming world, and it was designed to make the uber-geeks of this world, those people that you walk around the block just to avoid saying hello to because…
Wow, this is really dramatic.