Re: When functional languages can be accepted by industry?

From: John Max Skaller (skaller@maxtal.com.au)
Date: Thu Apr 13 2000 - 18:59:38 MET DST

  • Next message: John Max Skaller: "Re: When functional languages can be accepted by industry?"

    Jean-Christophe Filliatre wrote:
    >
    > > more attractive than C++. In ocaml, there are arrays, structures
    > > and objects etc, but no such things like pointers in C.
    >
    > Wrong. You have references, which are quite better than pointers (they
    > are typed,

            So are C/C++ ones ..

    > and necessarily initialized)

            .. which is a serious problem. And C++ also has 'necessarily
    initialised' references :-)

    > > 1. Current functional languages do not have enough library support:
    >
    > Please. ocaml has the most wonderful standard library that any other
    > language has ever had. Have a look in the reference manual before
    > stating such non-sense.

            Oh come on. Have a look at a real library before making
    such non-sense claims. Considerable functionality is missing,
    the library is inconsistent, the documentation is incomplete,
    and it is less generic than C++ STL, which is also probably
    more efficient on almost every operation.

            Many of us who know STL wonder how to fit it into the
    ocaml type system!
     
    > > 2. Functional languages do not well support the use of dynamic
    > > data structures which requires mutable operations for achieving the
    > > efficiency;
    >
    > Wrong. And you should stop thinking that efficiency means mutable data
    > structures. Once again, read Okasaki's book.

            The statement said 'functional languages do not
    well support use of dynamic data structures which _require mutable
    operations for efficiency_'. you cannot say the conditional
    is wrong, only the claim that functional languages do not
    provide good support for mutable data structures.

            You could argue that the argument is void, since the
    assumptions are vacuous 'there are no such data structures',
    but reality would prove you wrong very quickly. The vast majority
    of data structures are collections of interrelated objects
    reflecting or controlling state, and where changes are propagated
    throughout the data structures in such a way that efficient
    functional modelling would be worthless -- since the application
    domain is clearly one in which state transformation is the whole point.
     
    > Your arguments are not the good ones. People in industry do not use
    > functional programming for other reasons: because this is not in their
    > culture, because they don't know, because they have not been taught
    > functional programming. Some of them, like you, think that functional
    > programming languages are inefficient, but they are wrong.

            Show me a functional programming language that is as fast
    as C++ and I will give up C++. :-)

            Until then, I will use ocaml where speed is not essential,
    but power is important, and confidence in the result crucial
    (such as a compiler).

    -- 
    John (Max) Skaller, mailto:skaller@maxtal.com.au
    10/1 Toxteth Rd Glebe NSW 2037 Australia voice: 61-2-9660-0850
    checkout Vyper http://Vyper.sourceforge.net
    download Interscript http://Interscript.sourceforge.net
    



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