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I'm not entirely sure why this is getting downvoted. I'm a moderately noisy FP fan myself, but this statement does seem, on the balance of evidence, to be true
by dasmoth 10y ago
I'm not entirely sure why this is getting downvoted. I'm a moderately noisy FP fan myself, but this statement does seem, on the balance of evidence, to be true. I'm interested to know why.
- V-2 10y agoMaybe because dismissing those who appreciate the advantages of functional programming as "noisy fans" is condescending, and implies that their preferences are based on emotional rather than rational grounds. I'm not a noisy fan of FP at all, but I like a lot of concepts (like immutability), and I do adapt them in my code
- justin66 10y ago> dismissing those who appreciate the advantages of functional programming as "noisy fans" is condescending Take a look at the craziest comments in a Go thread and "noisy fans" seems a little generous.
- V-2 10y ago1. Go isn't a functional language 2. I didn't say noisy fans don't exist, only that it's unfair to automatically lump people with preference for functional approach into this category
- justin66 10y ago> Go isn't a functional language And that seems to be sufficient cause for the FP enthusiasts to lose their shit in Go threads. That sort of thing is the only exposure many of us have to FP people, for better or worse. When they pop in to tell everybody they're doing it wrong in the craziest fashion possible.
- richardwhiuk 10y agoI think noisy fan was meant to imply that people who are in favour of functional programming languages tend to be more vocal in their views, rather than those who are in favour of imperative programming languages. This is probably because imperative languages are the majority, so there's no need to soapbox, rather than anything related to the communities or the merits involved.
- V-2 10y agoAnd if the downvoted comment used the phrase "more vocal in one's views" instead probably it wouldn't get downvoted much
- g8oz 10y agoThe impression is that their preference runs on the ideological/pragmatic divide rather than the emotional/rational. (Not that I wouldn't want to be an FP samurai myself, along with exercising more regularly, flossing, and achieving inner peace )
- V-2 10y agoWell, hinting that they're ideologically biased wouldn't be fair either, if one doesn't bother to substantiate it in any way Note that a lot of people with "preferences" set on imperative languages have simply never stepped out of this paradigm and tried something else. I don't think it's symmetrical - I'd bet there's more C# programmers who've never dabbled in F#, or even heard of it, than the other way round : )
- lawpoop 10y agoProbably because what we're taught as programming is imperative programming, then moving on to OO, etc. If we were taught FP from the start (we, broadly speaking), then people would probably be fans of FP. It's funny how SQL is a declarative set-language, very different from imperative and other paradigms, yet nobody seems to bat an eye about it having its proper place and role.
- rev_null 10y agoBecause the article wasn't comparing F# to imperative languages. It was comparing it to other functional languages and asking why F# is unpopular among functional programmers.
- sickbeard 10y agoBecause most people familiar with programming can grasp an imperative language easily even if they may not be completely familiar with the language. Functional programming is like alien to them because it may not be entirely obvious what the instructions are doing at first glance.