91–100 of 124 posts
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How about F#'s Computation Expressions? Not exactly the same, I'm told, but they're close, if so.
They're called computation expressions in F# and not monads because they're not exclusively used to implement monads. The term is more generalised to capture the much larger scope of the feature. Here's a breakdown of the difference: http://tomasp.net/blog/2013/computation-zoo-padl/index.html
FWIW, UC Berkeley's intro CS course sequence goes through the following languages in order: [Scratch (in an optional gentle-intro CS course)], Python (with an emphasis on using it for functional programming), a tiny bit of Scheme, a tiny bit of SQL (before they used a toy logic programming language), Java, C, MIPS assembly. I think this walks down the ladder of abstraction very nicely.
Odd to use Python as your intro to functional programming, since it lacks many functional programming features besides lambdas which the language creator doesn't even like ( http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=98196 )
I've never formally studied CS, but I can definitely see the benefit. I can divide my own (amateur) programming experience into pre-Haskell and post-Haskell. Before I started learning Haskell, I thought I knew how to use a good half a dozen or more programming languages. After I started learning Haskell, I realised I'd really only known how to use one all along, and that they were all fundamentally the same. I wish I…
The nontraditional categories I've encountered are something like:
The macro facilities in lisp, scheme, forth (or factor), template haskell, and C++ templates.
Array languages like APL, K, or R.
Prototype inheritance with smalltalk or Lua.
Avoiding side effects with Haskell, Ocaml, or C#'s linq.
The "we're serious about type theory" languages like Haskell, coq, agda, and idris.
I don't see why they don't just teach C, x86, and Haskell everywhere. If you know the concepts behind these, you can quickly grok any other programming language. Also I never got the whole hype behind OOP. IMHO its self explanatory, nothing you need an entire course on to be effective and understand OOP programs. Memory layout and management, advanced pointer concepts and monads are a slightly different matter. If I…
It's really not much to it. Get value records right. Get method records right. Sadly, none of C, x86 or Haskell does this.
Although I didn't do CS, but electrical engineering, I would have loved to get some more exposure to functional programming. We got Scheme which everybody hated because of the cumbersome bracket counting. And of course we got C, Java, Matlab, and VHDL, besides a bunch of assembly. VHDL or Verilog would maybe also a nice eye opener for CS students. It's again another mindset.
I don't see why they don't just teach C, x86, and Haskell everywhere. If you know the concepts behind these, you can quickly grok any other programming language. Also I never got the whole hype behind OOP. IMHO its self explanatory, nothing you need an entire course on to be effective and understand OOP programs. Memory layout and management, advanced pointer concepts and monads are a slightly different matter. If I…
FWIW, UC Berkeley's intro CS course sequence goes through the following languages in order: [Scratch (in an optional gentle-intro CS course)], Python (with an emphasis on using it for functional programming), a tiny bit of Scheme, a tiny bit of SQL (before they used a toy logic programming language), Java, C, MIPS assembly. I think this walks down the ladder of abstraction very nicely.
I'm not sure about Haskell as a beginner's language, but I consider Scheme to be almost ideal for that purpose since it's so easily digestible.
While I wouldn't start with Java (it's not the simplest language about - I'd probably use C or Python) Dijkstra's anti-Java rant is over the top. It's still a huge language and that's NOT because of any corporate advertising campaign. Something that succeeds as well as Java has to have some actual value.
Sounds an awful lot like, the Bandwagon fallacy
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I have a problem with modern notions of purely functional. My first functional programming language was Caml Light, back in 1996. Followed by Prolog and eventually Lisp. All alongside traditional lambda calculus and logic proofs, with ocasional references to a programming language called Mirada. So for me, Lisp is functional programming and I don't buy into this modern notion that only Haskell is the poster child of…
I looks like alayne is using 'purely functional' to mean Pure + Functional, but you are using it to mean Everything is an Expression / First-class functions, etc.. The functional paradigm. Lisp is definitely a functional language. It's just not as pure as Haskell, which is the poster child for Maximally Pure FP, if not for the functional style.
We were already doing functional programming while Haskell was still using diapers.
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You mean like Crash Bandicoot, Abuse, Jak and Daxter? Or maybe Genera. Or maybe Remote Agent software used by Nasa Deep Space 1? Or eventually the train control systems running on software from Siscog?
Probably more like when Mozilla ships a browser written in Rust. Even though Rust handles low-level so well, it heavily uses FP concepts. Meanwhile, this is good news for people creating startups or otherwise being competitive. Having advanced programming languages where your competition is mired down having to churn out 10x more code, is certainly a benefit. Although not every (many?) business really comes down to t…
Actually I would rather see this happening, than the continuous effort on Firefox OS.