Re: [Xotcl] Functional programming?

From: Brett Schwarz <brett_schwarz_at_yahoo.com>
Date: 16 May 2002 13:12:24 -0700

you may want to look here for some ideas:

http://mini.net/tcl/2752.html


    --brett


On Thu, 2002-05-16 at 12:15, Gustaf Neumann wrote:
> On Thursday 16 May 2002 15:16, Rick Hedin wrote:
> > Hello. My friends are trying to convince me of the value of functional
> > programming. Writing safer and clearer programs sounds good, but I am not
> > inclined to learn Haskell.
> >
> > Xotcl is a pretty flexible beast. Can I do functional programming in it?
> > It seems as though classes are a variety of object in Xotcl, so that will
> > be an advantage for passing classes around, but what else am I missing? I
> > suspect that Gustaf and Uwe thought about functional programming when they
> > designed their beast. Can I find out what their thoughts were?
>
> hi rick,
>
> nobody can find out today, what their thoughts really were :)
>
> there is no exact answer to your question, here are some
> random thoughts...
>
> well, functional programming is quite different in principle
> from oo programming which is in turn quite different to say
> logic programming. it's not a matter of "power" or "flexibilty",
> it's a matter, how the matter how one like to think about
> a certain problem area and what are the primary things of
> concern ... well in theory. in practice, many of the pure
> concepts are sometimes less important.
>
> oo: think in things, classify things, encapsulate state,
> reuse code, build systems
>
> functional programming: think in expressions, purists say that
> variables are not needed, support powerful nice things
> with funny names like "list comprehensions", "monads" etc.
>
> logic programming: think in logic, expressing relations between
> things (like grammars), express "truth", don't focus on
> program flow, try theories
>
> you can certainly program in a functional programming style
> in Tcl or XOTcl, but it does not make this necessarily a functional
> language. The much rumored "feather" project much more support
> in this direction.
>
> i am a friend of varieties: use the right tool for the right
> task. There are many projects that i would start today in
> e.g. C, some other in Prolog/clp(R), some in Java or whatever,
> but most in xotcl (but i am certainly not objective).
>
> There is no way, we could port all nice features of all
> programming languages to xotcl, and if we would, i am not
> sure whether i would like the result. xotcl is a theme,
> a way, we proceed. There are certainly other ways as well,
> and many of these will be better suited for certain tasks.
>
> i would say, listen to your friends, look into haskell,
> make your own opinion, how you would like to solve your
> programming tasks, this will help you to make well-founded
> decisions.
>
> I have never used Haskell for anything real. The next best
> was APL where i have written various programs; it was
> quite fun, but i a got the somewhat wrong impression
> what computers are for (i thought a computer is primarily
> is a big, powerful calculator). Today i would say that it is
> more important to use a computer to build systems. For this
> task, oo is quite ok, i would say....
>
> hope this helps a little to make your mind up.
>
> greetings
> -gustaf
>
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-- 
Brett Schwarz
brett_schwarz AT yahoo.com