An Empathetic Functional Language
blog.drewolson.org
An Empathetic Functional Language
1–10 of 24 posts
Re: An Empathetic Functional Language
#2This made me more excited about Elixir than anything else I've read about the language thus far.
The talk of "empathy" as a core value also reminded me of the focus of Ernie Miller's "Humane Development". http://erniemiller.org/2014/12/17/humane-development/
Re: An Empathetic Functional Language
#3Elixir is not homoiconic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7623991
Re: An Empathetic Functional Language
#4> Elixir is a pure functional language
No, it is not.
Re: An Empathetic Functional Language
#5Elixir is not homoiconic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7623991
It's close enough that arguing over the definition without explanation isn't useful. For those curious, Elixir's AST is represented by its own datastructures. Based on where you look up the definition, this is or isn't enough to classify as homoiconic, but the point Drew is making is the same. A programmable AST is hugely powerful for metaprogramming.
Re: An Empathetic Functional Language
#6> Elixir is a pure functional language No, it is not.
Author here. You're right. I removed references to "pure" in the article.
Re: An Empathetic Functional Language
#7> Elixir is a pure functional language No, it is not.
What is it formally missing? Just curious
Re: An Empathetic Functional Language
#8Community and attention to user interface is definitely one of the more striking aspects of Elixir. I've seen José (the creator) stress over unclear error messages that he has no control over and focus design of even the smallest aspect of an API. Often times changing designs multiple times until its right.
That sort of attention to detail is apparent across the board in the language and the community.
Re: An Empathetic Functional Language
#9Re: An Empathetic Functional Language
#10> Elixir is a pure functional language No, it is not.
The lack of empathy in your comment is exactly what ends up pushing people (like me) away from functional languages.
Your comment just points what is wrong, without any help to guide those who would like to know more, be them the author or a reader. It is interesting because you just dismissed everything the article was about: being empathetic and providing guidance.
For the curious, I understand a pure functional language one that explicitly marks all side-effects, for example, by using monads. So Elixir indeed does not seem to be a pure language. More information can be found on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purely_functional