Does functional programming work?

[Nick Sabalausky]

"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.