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"Functional language" is ill-defined, hence my specific question about static typing and purity. I would really like to have a language for scientific computin
by pklausler 10y ago
"Functional language" is ill-defined, hence my specific question about static typing and purity. I would really like to have a language for scientific computing that had good scalable performance as well as static types and referential transparency.
- StefanKarpinski 10y agoAs far as I know, no such system exists. Strict static typing and numerical computing are, I suspect, more at odds with each other than they casually appear to be. The seemingly simple `+` operator is the most polymorphic and overloaded function-like entity in many static languages (and often can't be defined as a normal function for that very reason). And `+` doesn't hold a candle to the polymorphism of array indexing and slicing, which is pretty crucial for productive numerical work.
- pklausler 10y agoThanks for your reply. Someday, Haskell will get a good matrix library, and then I'll be happy.
- leephillips 10y agoFortran?
- pklausler 10y agoModern Fortran is an awesome power tool and I love it. But it's hardly a pure functional programming language!
- leephillips 10y agoOh no, certainly not. Sorry, I didn't realize you were asking for that, too!
- omaranto 10y agoOh, you meant static typing when you wrote strong typing above? That makes more sense.
- pklausler 10y agoYes, I sure did. Sorry for the confusion.