> Passing a file name as an argument but working on the file itself looks a > lot like using a global variable - which would violate the strict functional > paradigm.
Right, and functional programmers dislike IO for the same kinds of reason they dislike global variables. But not for exactly the same reason (one big difference is that a program can control its own variables [and hence can abstract them away], but won't control "the state of the world"). > I notice the article you cited talks about updating a database by > passing the database as an argument - not just a reference to the database. Exactly! -Dan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
