Re: The importance and relevance of FP

[Lars Henrik Mathiesen]

> From: Ralf Muschall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: 16 Aug 2000 21:46:44 +0200

> "Craig Dickson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > simplistic, binary distinction), then you have to decide where to
> > draw the line between "functional languages" and other languages
> > that may, to some
> 
> I think it became impossible to draw that line since the inventors
> and maintainers of dysfunctional langauges learned that FP is cool
> and added closures etc. (Perl has them since 5.001m, Javascript
> since 1.2, just to mention a few).

Yes, but in Perl at least you have to call a closure, or any function
passed as a parameter, with a different syntax than a function defined
at top level. To my taste, that's an important difference from 'real'
functional languages. (Emacs Lisp wouldn't be a functional language
either by this criterion).

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (Humour NOT marked)