:: Re: [DNG] Functional languages
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Author: ael
Date:  
To: dng
Old-Topics: [DNG] Scheme/Lisp: was What is your take on finit?
Subject: Re: [DNG] Functional languages
On Tue, Feb 01, 2022 at 12:01:56PM -0500, Steve Litt wrote:
> Nikolaus Klepp via Dng said on Tue, 1 Feb 2022 17:55:30 +0100
>
> >Anno domini 2022 Tue, 1 Feb 11:44:37 -0500
> > Steve Litt scripsit:
>
> >> In the hands of anything but a very careful and
> >> security-knowledgeable programmer, writing Python3 is more secure
> >> than writing C. You could think of Python3 as C with seatbelts and
> >> airbags, and a heck of an inefficient transmission.
> >
>
> I've been trying for over a decade to learn Scheme, or any other
> functional programming language. I've failed every time. Since 1982


I had decided not to jump in on this thread since I am fanatical about
occam and haskell. Unfortunately occam seems to be withering away.

But if you learn any functional language Haskell is the only sane
choice. There are many excellent tutorials online. Some assume a fair
mathematical background, but there are some which make very few
assumptions. Haskell code can be extremely efficient despite being
functional and having garbage collection, approaching well written C.

Haskell's proper rigorous mathematical underpinings make it very
easy to learn. Extremly simple, and no hidden surprises.
Pure elegance. But yes, a fairly steep learning curve if you have
only a C-style imperative background. But the journey is exhilarating.

Python is OO, so hopelessly broken in a concurrent world. But yes,
still useful, and most of its good ideas are stolen/taken from Haskell...


ael