Ask HN: Which functional programming language is the popular enterprise choice?

#1

Post by _mc » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 9:30 AM UTC

If you use functional languages to build full or part of your application or you are aware of any such commercial applications please share!

Re: Ask HN: Which functional programming language is the popular enterprise choice?

#2

Post by detaro » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 9:37 AM UTC

I'd guess Scala is the most popular choice, but for nearly every language you'll find a company using it for at least parts of their products.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional programming language is the popular enterprise choice?

#3

Post by ExpiredLink » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:45 PM UTC

None.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional programming language is the popular enterprise choice?

#4

Post by DanielBMarkham » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:49 PM UTC

Jane Street is using OCAML. That or F# is my preferred choice.

Having said that, the tricky part is sticking to pure FP and coordinating data structures. Not impossible, but it's a foreign area for many shops.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional programming language is the popular enterprise choice?

#5

Post by bnastic » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:56 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #2

I'd guess Scala is the most popular choice, but for nearly every language you'll find a company using it for at least parts of their products.

Can confirm. Scala is picking up slowly in financial services (JVM heritage certainly helps)

Re: Ask HN: Which functional programming language is the popular enterprise choice?

#6

Post by danwakefield » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

Elixir might pick up some mind share, similar to ruby but still keeps its erlang roots.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional programming language is the popular enterprise choice?

#7

Post by mlitchard » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

I guess you'd need to define what you mean by functional language. That term gets thrown around a lot, to the point of meaninglessness. If you mean referentially transparent then neither Scala nor F# are referentially transparent.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional programming language is the popular enterprise choice?

#8

Post by tsm » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 4:05 PM UTC

Clojure is gaining popularity. Staples uses it (their "SparX" group), and much more notably a Clojure service is used to process every single transaction in Walmart stores.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional programming language is the popular enterprise choice?

#9

Post by _halgari » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 4:07 PM UTC

Clojure is pretty big in some places. The list here: http://clojure.org/Companies includes Staples Sparx, Walmart Labs, Groupon, and several other well known names.

Re: Ask HN: Which functional programming language is the popular enterprise choice?

#10

Post by vegancap » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 4:09 PM UTC

Clojure's all the rage at the moment.