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Re: OT: functional languages (was: Politics of Java)



Craig Dickson wrote:

> Essentially, the definition of a functional language is that it is
> based on lambda calculus or combinators, and 

Oops, forgot to go back and finish that sentence. Sorry!

Functional languages are basically sugared lambda calculus or combinator
logic. The sugar generally includes things like named functions, data
types, a module system, and practical necessities like I/O primitives
(which ideally should be as isolated as possible from the rest of the
language, as it is in Haskell's monad syntax). Various impurities may be
present, such as modifiable variables. Functions are first-class
objects; they can be passed as function parameters, returned from
functions, stored in data structures, etc.

Craig

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