James G. Sack (jim) wrote:
I know very little about functional programming, but I keep getting stuck on claims that assume the absence of side effects. Is code that has side effects (eg, any i/o) not allowed IN a function by some kind of formality? Is side-effects stuff forced into some special code artifact that is outside the meaning of _function_ -- or what?
Yes, side effects are forced into a special code artifact. The key seems to be keeping the purely functional internals of your program separate from the messy side effect dependent externals of the program. That way you can make certain guarantees about how the internals of your program will work which seems like a win to me. Keeping these worlds separate seem to be what Haskell uses monads for.
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