Jerem000 wrote: Vincent might be the only crazy enough person here ... to enjoy functional programming.
FTFY. I am pretty much the only person here, full stop.
I do. Thank you for the pointer. This seems a bit related to functional reactive programming, though I don't think the latter is as GUI-centric as that. That's something I'd like to take a look at but never did -- I simply don't have
much any use for GUI-writing tools these days.
I'am still trying to learn functional programming and it's as hard as it is fun ; even though I've let aside monads and other arrows that are still confusing for me.
.. And that are not
essential to functional programming at all. I would call that "algebraic programming" or "category programming" rather than merely "functional programming" (note: that's not a standard term, I more or less just made it up). That kind of stuff arises quite naturally from and extends functional programming in the same sense than OOP extends imperative (procedural) programming, but to me it's rather clearly distinct. Of course there is a strong link: it is only possible if your language is purely functional -- all algebraic laws break down if you have any mutability -- but it is by no means a
necessary accessory of FP.
For now all that stuff falls under the label of FP but I bet at some point the terminology will have to reflect the fact that it's not
only FP. Currently, there is exactly one somewhat mainstream (ie. stuff has actually been written with it) general-purpose programming language that supports and encourages algebraic programming (unless I've missed something). Guess which. There are also languages like Mathematica and Maple and such, but they don't qualify as "general-purpose". So there is simply not much traction in that direction right now, which is probably why everything still falls under the same label.
Anyway, that was a digression, I should really go do some actual work,
Cya.
