[OT] Interesting blog post on disadvantages of the pure functional paradigm

[Timon Gehr via Digitalmars-d]

On 10.12.2016 00:25, qznc wrote:
> On Friday, 9 December 2016 at 10:25:49 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
>> On Friday, 9 December 2016 at 10:01:13 UTC, qznc wrote:
>>> http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/articles/functional.html
>>
>> What about python and javascript?
>
> Python and Javascript are mixed paradigm languages. You could argue if
> purity and immutability are part of FP, then Python and Javascript lack
> essential parts of FP and are not mixed. That is a good point. It is
> also what hardcore FP programmers think about those languages. They pity
> them.
> ...

I don't think it is necessarily the best approach to start with an 
imperative language and then say that purity and immutability are 
somehow features you add on top in order to obtain FP. [1]

It is just as valid to consider impure languages as restrictions of pure 
functional programming languages where all computations take place in a 
specific non-customizable monad.

If the starting point is logic, functional is more fundamental, if the 
starting point is current hardware, imperative is more fundamental. I 
think it is useful to understand both of those perspectives well.


> If FP is about being declarative, then logic programming (Prolog) is
> even more so.

Questionable.

Quick google search finds this post, there might be better explanations: 
https://synthese.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/prologs-death/




[1] Also, immutability, in the D sense, is not essential. What is 
important is value semantics. Immutability actually prevents lazy 
functional programming.