John Dorsey wrote:
Well, try this: Go ask a random person how you add up a list of numbers.
Most of them will say something about adding the first two together,
adding the third to that total, and so forth. In other words, the step
by step instructions.
You word the (hypothetical) question with a bias toward imperative
thinking. You're asking "How do you do this action?"
Why isn't the question "What is the sum of a list of numbers?", which is
biased toward the declarative?
Sure. But what is a computer program? It's a *list of instructions* that
tells a computer *how to do something*. And yet, the Haskell definition
of sum looks more like a definition of what a sum is rather than an
actual, usable procedure for *computing* that sum. (Of course, we know
that it /is/ in fact executable... it just doesn't look it at first sight.)
Whatever; I'm leaning more and more towards the concept that FP is only
hard for people who already learned some other way...
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