Does functional programming work?

[Ary Borenszweig]

retard wrote:
> Fri, 01 Jan 2010 12:19:25 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:
> 
>> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> "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 agree, the old programming-language-as-religion problem. I first ran
>> into this when I read the original Pascal book, and became enamored with
>> it. I tried doing a modest project in Pascal using a pure Pascal
>> compiler.
>>
>> 80% went smoothly, the other 20% spent wrestling with the nanny language
>> tsk-tsking consumed nearly 100% of the time spend on the project. I just
>> couldn't get things that had to be done, done, as the language would
>> shut off all the avenues.
>>
>> When I then picked up K+R C, I never wrote another line of Pascal. It so
>> soured me on Pascal that I never got on the later bandwagons of Modula
>> II, Delphi, TurboPascal, etc. Never even looked at them.
> 
> The programming-language-as-religion problem exists only in your 
> imagination.

You don't have an idea how many times I heard the phrase "Please, 
please, let this work" out of a programmer's mouth in front of a computer.