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The reactions to Hague's previous article reminded me of allergic responses - that is, in a programming community that has become utterly soaked with "more FP =
by chipsy 17y ago
The reactions to Hague's previous article reminded me of allergic responses - that is, in a programming community that has become utterly soaked with "more FP = better" commentary, any statement to the contrary must be shrugged off as irrelevant or incorrect. And so we see people falling over themselves to say that something must be wrong with Hague or his arguments.
He was clear enough in the first article that he was advocating compromise over purity, specifically addressing pure FP's faults as a tool for software development. The real problem is not with him, but that with FP we've hit that point where the hype has induced people to start bellowing various forms of "USE FP EVERYWHERE, FP>IMPERATIVE" meme from the rooftops. See the memes around TDD, design patterns, etc.
In conclusion, this is a prime indicator that the "interesting new stuff" in programming practice has gone elsewhere. Functional style is quickly entering the mainstream, it has its zealots, and it's well on its way to become just another tool. So the question is now, what's next?
- Raphael_Amiard 17y agoThe problem with that argument is that, the fact that something is a meme and the fact that it is true are two orthogonal things. I do think Hague has a point though, even if it is limited in scope to particular kind of programs
- davidmathers 17y agoThe barbarians are at the gates. Hordes of Java programmers are being exposed to generics and delegates; hundreds of packages have been uploaded to Hackage; the Haskell IRC channel has nearly hit 500 users; and it’s only a matter of time before Microsoft seals that multi-billion dollar bid for Hayoo. The time has come to retreat and climb higher into our ivory tower: we need to design a language that is so devious, so confusing, and so bizarre, it will take donkey’s years for mainstream languages to catch up. Agda, Coq, and Epigram are some approximation of what functional programming might become, but why stop there? I want strict data, lazy codata, quotient types, and a wackier underlying type theory. http://www.haskell.org/sitewiki/images/0/0a/TMR-Issue10.pdf http://www.haskell.org/sitewiki/images/0/0a/TMR-Issue10.pdf