4 ms·

I do not see LISP as "declarative". I see LISP as recursive+immutable but “von Neumann style” on the end. LISP is not declarative, I think.

• nickpsecurity 11y ago
  I mostly agree with you. I'm using it in the sense that functional programming is closer to declarative programming in saying what must be done and letting the compiler/hardware do it. LISP also easily implements true, declarative programming. It also does a form of it with some domain-specific languages. So, it seems like one of the best compromises. I recall doing automatic programming research long ago. We got to the 4GL's that automated much of what you want. There were even programs that took requirements put into CASE tools and synthesized simple code to meet them. Eventually we found that we'd have to precisely specify behavior, requirements, and constraints w/ heuristics-driven tools synthesizing the system. Probably led to concept for 5GL's being constraint-programming. In any case, if you look at all of that, functional programming or 4GL combined with a formal specification language + good QA tools are MUCH EASIER. One person told me you'd have to think like a lawyer to do English precise enough declare an app into existence. While there's even non-technical people cranking out working, readable code in Python and Ocaml. Cleanroom's restrictive method got similar quality out of languages not known for it. I think combining approaches like that is better than declarative approach for the general case w/ DSL's (in LISP etc) being used for declarative programming of specific components (GUI's, database integration). The constraints and heuristics mean you're always doing more work than mere declarative programming outside simple stuff like SQL.