David Brown wrote:
Scheme/lisp are only part of the way toward functional programming
languages. Most programs still rely heavily on mutable data.
Yep. Scheme seems to be generally used in a more functional way than
Common Lisp but you are right in that you can implement any programming
style with them. That is why a lot of people like them. Right
tool/technique for the job.
If you really want to learn functional programming, learn Haskell. It
really takes some mind bending, but I found it to be fun, even if not
Already learning it. I have gone through most of
I really like the idea of purely functional programming and the idea
that you can theoretically prove correctness for some codes. Still
trying to grok monads though.
There's nothing wrong, at all, with a global that doesn't change. The
problems come with globals that can change value. Things define'd will
Right. If you can somehow guarantee (by declaring it static or whatever)
that it won't change. But as long as it could possibly change via a bug
it's a problem.
For mutable state, it is much better to keep that in closures.
Yep. Still trying to grok closures also. I like the idea of designing
smart data structure that can do things themselves as opposed to
functions to manipulate data structures that are external to them.
Again, "pure" functional programming doesn't have any mutable state.
Yep. And just try explaining that it is possible to write useful
software in a language that has no variable assignment to a 20 year
procedural programming coder and see how far you get. :)
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