On Wed, 2015-03-18 at 13:27 +0000, CraigDillabaugh via Digitalmars-d wrote: > […] > There is quite possibly something too that, and as I imagine > with more functional experience it will come easier to me. > > However, I still think imperative code is generally easier to > reason about because (usually) each line of code is performing > a single task, whereas with functional coding the goal seems > to be to cram as many operations as possible into a single line > (I know that isn't the real reason, it just seems that way at > times). Trying to 'unroll' everything in your head can be a > challenge. Throw in a lambda function or two with > the mess of braces/symbols and then you have a real puzzler.
Each imperative statement may (or may not) be easier to understand, but the problem is putting them together in combination. The issue here is creating chunks on which you put a label for reasoning with. Everything is about the abstractions you reason with. A person who is familiar only with C-style programming (as per OPs code fragment) has built up various abstractions, but they are nonetheless at a very low level and so many have to be combined. Someone who has learned the internal iteration abstraction and higher- order functions is actually working at a higher level of abstraction and generally needs to combine fewer things to achieve the overall goal. Cramming operations on a line is nothing to do with the abstractions, that is to do with some people playing code golf. If you find yourself reading declarative style code and having to unroll to imperative equivalent to understand, it just means you have not yet internalized the declarative abstraction yet into your mental model and personal programming language. There is a lot of work on all this sort of stuff in the psychology of programming research literature. We can speculate all we like here based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence, they do experiments and have real data. Of course if you see any experimenting on first and second year undergraduates of computer science, ignore the results. I am talking about those who experiment with practicing programmers, people with real experience and expertise. -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:russel.win...@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: rus...@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
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