Does functional programming work?

[yigal chripun]

Nick Sabalausky Wrote:

> "dsimcha" <dsimcha at yahoo.com> wrote in message 
> news:hhlsk7$2v03$1 at digitalmars.com...
> > == Quote from Nick Sabalausky (a at a.a)'s article
> >> "Walter Bright" <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message
> >> news:hhgvqk$8cj$2 at digitalmars.com...
> >> > An interesting counterpoint to the usual FP hype:
> >> >
> >> > http://prog21.dadgum.com/55.html
> >> Didn't read the original article, but the one being linked to is 
> >> completely
> >> in line with how I feel about not just FP, but all programming paradigms,
> >> for example, OO: It's great as long as you don't pull a Java or (worse 
> >> yet)
> >> a Smalltalk and try to cram *everything* into the paradigm.
> >
> > I actually think Smalltalk had the better idea.  Java doesn't support any 
> > paradigm
> > besides OO well, and neither does Smalltalk.  The difference is that, in
> > Smalltalk, at least everything is an object, so you can do "pure" OO well. 
> > Java
> > is "almost pure" OO, but it lack of ints, floats, etc. being objects, 
> > combined
> > with its lack of support for any paradigm that works well without ints, 
> > floats,
> > etc. being objects, makes the language feel like a massive kludge, and 
> > leads to
> > debacles like autoboxing to get around this.
> >
> > In multiparadigm languages like D, C++ and C#, the lack of ints, floats, 
> > etc.
> > being objects is less of an issue because, although it's a wart in the OO 
> > system,
> > noone is forcing you to use the OO system for **everything**.
> 
> I certainly agree about Java and multiparadign languages, but I never 
> understood how, for instance, making the "if" statement an object ever did 
> anything but obfuscate Smalltalk and give people warm fuzzies for being 
> uber-consistent.
> 
> 

Have you ever actually used Smalltalk?? I have used it and it's the easiest language to use by far, having conditionals as methods of Boolean is much better, easier to read and more flexiable.  

The beauty of smalltalk is that you can easily add new "language" features in the library with little effort and they do not look foreign to the language.
in fact, almost all of smalltalk is implemented in the library and it only has 5 actual keywords.