Casey Hawthorne wrote:
I'm intrigued that Python has some functional constructions in the
language.
Would it be possible to more clearly separate the pure code (without
side effects) from the impure code (that deals with state changes,
I/O, etc.), so that the pure code could be compiled and have
aggressive functional transformations applied to it for efficiency.
Choosing a better algorithm usually have much more impact on efficiency
than programming to the language's optimization scheme. A slow algorithm
will always be slow no matter how much (functional or regular)
optimization in it[1]. If you bother efficiency that much, maybe python
is not the best suited language for you.
That way, the syntax would be a lot easier to understand, than most
functional languages, like Haskell.
Python's syntax is already easier to understand than most functional
language, and it also support functional-style programming. However,
python is still an imperative language, no matter how much functional
functionalities (pun not intended) is in it.
[1] of course there are certain types of optimizations -- that actually
changes the algorithm -- that may have a significant impact, such as
memoization. However if you know memoization well enough, you wouldn't
want to activate it on all pure functions...
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