Re: The importance and relevance of FP

[Frank Atanassow]

Ralf Muschall 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).

First, you might well include first-order (algebraic) languages in your
definition of "functional".

Second, if your language has a semantics, it is not very hard to draw a
distinction: you just have to show an appropriate embedding of
lambda-calculus.

If your language has no semantics, then you are in for a world of trouble
anyway, and the question of whether your language is (higher-order) functional
will be the least of your worries.

-- 
Frank Atanassow, Dept. of Computer Science, Utrecht University
Padualaan 14, PO Box 80.089, 3508 TB Utrecht, Netherlands
Tel +31 (030) 253-1012, Fax +31 (030) 251-3791