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Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good

dave.fayr.am

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Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good

#11

Post by tete »

stmartin wrote: post #5

This 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…

No offense but the same could be said about Object Oriented Programming. To me functional languages make a lot more sense, because of the "No side effects" stuff.

Reminds me of a quote from Richard Stallman: "Adding OOP to Emacs is not clearly an improvement; I used OOP when working on the Lisp Machine window systems, and I disagree with the usual view that it is a superior way to program."

But I also don't consider functional programming harder. I actually do have more problems with (C++/Java/Python style) OO, even though I like it when it is a real language concept, like in Smalltalk and others.

But I am weird. I consider Assembly to be easier (to learn) than C(++) and Perl easier (to read) than most other scripting languages.

I think it is a lot about the way you think. A language has to compensate the things that are hard for you so you can concentrate on the easy stuff. It's a bit like having different tutorials or teachers. There are people that think similar to you while there are other who think very different. It's a common problem in schools. If the teacher thinks in a different way the pupils will have a hard time.

Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good

#12

Post by stmartin »

tete wrote: post #11
stmartin wrote: post #5

This 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…

No offense but the same could be said about Object Oriented Programming. To me functional languages make a lot more sense, because of the "No side effects" stuff. Reminds me of a quote from Richard Stallman: "Adding OOP to Emacs is not clearly an improvement; I used OOP when working on the Lisp Machine window systems, and I disagree with the usual view that it is a superior way to program." But I also don't consider…

"I think it is a lot about the way you think"

Brother, you are on the money with that statement. But the MINUTE I make a religion out of the way _I_ or a bunch of eclectics uber-geeks think, is the minute you bring about the demise and distaste of that particular paradigm of thinking.

I can relate to the 'way of thinking' better than these stupid religious arguments about FP. Did you know you can program in an OO fashion in C? Or even in Lisp, if you really cared to? You could also write a very 'functional' program in C if you really wanted to.

Why is everything black and white with geeks, is beyond my wildest dreams - but it just points to a lack of mature thinking.

Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good

#13

Post by tumult »

dustingetz wrote: post #7
tumult wrote: post #6

FP 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?

The title of this article, for example. The idea of this article is that functional programming is hard, because it forces you to think in a new way. But here, calling functional programming hard is just used to pat oneself on the back. Great, this article says you can map a function over a collection and then sum it. You don't need to think of yourself as some elite programmer that casts a shadow over procedural programmers. It's not true.

Functional programming is just the general notion of using more functions, and less computer-architectury things, to express your ideas. It's not necessarily about map/reduce, monads, or whatever. Encode your ideas mostly as functions where possible. That's it.

It's bad to say that functional programming is hard on purpose, or that it makes you a part of some elite cadre. Functional programming should be, and usually is, no harder than any other way to explicitly write down your ideas. The whole point is to make it more simple to express your ideas in a way that can be evaluated by a computer. Functional programming isn't hard. Programming is hard.

Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good

#14

Post by [deleted] »

stmartin wrote: post #5

This 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

#15

Post by tptacek »

tumult wrote: post #13
dustingetz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate?

The title of this article, for example. The idea of this article is that functional programming is hard, because it forces you to think in a new way. But here, calling functional programming hard is just used to pat oneself on the back. Great, this article says you can map a function over a collection and then sum it. You don't need to think of yourself as some elite programmer that casts a shadow over procedural pro…

I'm not expert enough to call you out on this, but isn't "function", the way it's used in "functional programming", working from a different and more strict definition of the word "function" that (say) a C programmer is used to? I don't know that you're wrong about this summary of FP, but it doesn't smell right to me.

Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good

#16

Post by KirinDave »

stmartin wrote: post #5

This 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 think you're misunderstanding the aim of my essay. It's not to say that FP is uniformly superior to OOP. It's that there is value (and difficulty) in learning the functional abstractions. The same is true of most programming paradigms, but we live in a world where FP is one of the less understood and increasingly relevant tools.

Do you really think this is so controversial?

Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good

#17

Post by Spyro7 »

tumult wrote: post #13
dustingetz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate?

The title of this article, for example. The idea of this article is that functional programming is hard, because it forces you to think in a new way. But here, calling functional programming hard is just used to pat oneself on the back. Great, this article says you can map a function over a collection and then sum it. You don't need to think of yourself as some elite programmer that casts a shadow over procedural pro…

"Functional programming is just the general notion of using more functions, and less computer-architectury things, to express your ideas."

Umm, no, that is not what functional programming is. Functional programming is, basically, programming without side-effects. A purely functional language will have variables that are completely immutable. This is a bit of a shift away from the way things are done in C or C++.

Speaking just for myself, I started into the programming world with Java (not counting QBasic), and I am finding it incredibly hard to wrap my brain around the idea of functional programming.

My understanding is that most programmers that have a background primarily working with non-functional languages have a challenging time initially grasping the concepts of functional programming. However, I would guess that a programmer that learns a functional programming style early on would probably have very little difficulty understanding non-functional constructs.

For more information, I would like to point you towards some easy reading:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_effect_(computer_science)

* http://learnyouahaskell.com/introduction#so-whats-haskell

Edit: To whoever down-voted me, I would appreciate some explanation of your views. The fact is that functional programming is not just using functions. The article plainly refers to functional programming languages and not simply using functions. There is a difference.

Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good

#18

Post by tumult »

tptacek wrote: post #15
tumult wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title of this article, for example. The idea of this article is that functional programming is hard, because it forces you to think in a new way. But here, calling functional programming hard is just used to pat oneself on the back. Great, this article says you can map a function over a collection and then sum it. You don't need to think of yourself as some elite programmer that casts a shadow over procedural pro…

I'm not expert enough to call you out on this, but isn't "function", the way it's used in "functional programming", working from a different and more strict definition of the word "function" that (say) a C programmer is used to? I don't know that you're wrong about this summary of FP, but it doesn't smell right to me.

It depends. A C function is actually a procedure: a list of statements that have some effect on the computer, and then (maybe) shove some return value through the stack at the end. A function in languages like Clean or Haskell or Clojure or Agda or Coq can only return values, and have no effect on the machine (like mutating memory). Of course, this construct is used only as a way to express ideas. The notion of a function that has no other effect on the machine is actually a lie. The time it takes to evaluate the function is a real effect. So is the memory it uses. It's not a perfect abstraction (none are) but for many types of problems, pure functions can work as a tool to help a programmer.

Sorry, typed this on a phone, hard to edit.

Re: Functional Programming Is Hard, That's Why It's Good

#19

Post by danenania »

stmartin wrote: post #5

This 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…

"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."

What is the point of this vitriol? Makes you seem fairly anti-social yourself.

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