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Not all languages are equaly suitable to all tasks. If your leetcode easy problem is to write a quick sort, you wouldn't use linked list + recursion. That being

Not all languages are equaly suitable to all tasks. If your leetcode easy problem is to write a quick sort, you wouldn't use linked list + recursion. That being said, the OCaml idiomatic solution is to declare a mutable array and write your for-loop, just like you would do in C++. > given everything's immutability OCaml has a lot of mutable datastructures. It's perfectly fine to use them. Even though with experience, you realize there's often a a better/safer way to do it. Also, I'm surprised that in 2023, functional programming still sounds like a mystery to some people. Python/Rust/C++ all have closures, immutable datastructures, their versions of the usual functional combinators, some form of variant types / pattern-matching (maybe not python?). C++23 even has monads. CppCon is full of talks of people realizing that they can write simpler code using this things. I believe all this FP tools should be in the bag of any proficient programmer.

staunton 3y ago
CppCon is a very niche audience in my experience. Most "C++ programmers" use a subset of C++11 with some UB sprinkled here and there. When you care about productivity I'm starting to suspect that's actually fine.
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aeonik 3y ago
I'm not surprised people still don't know functional programming at all. It is really such a different way of programming, and if you don't try to write an entire project using the style, it's just too easy to fall back into mutable code, depriving your self of the greater benefits. Most of the code I used to write was just gluing libraries together, even heavily Object Oriented stuff was too complicated and becomes a spider web of dependencies, so I always hunted for better libraries, rather than try to extend existing ones. Now, I've been writing Clojure for about 3 or 4 years, and I still struggle with certain functional and immutable algorithms. But, now when I go back to Python I occasionally get bit very hard from the surprising mutability. So my brain is definitely adjusting to the safety. I'm still not fluent with a lot of higher order functional concepts. Though I think I'm finally understanding Monads and Transducers. It's hard to break 10+ years of imperative habit. What really helped me was diving down into the core of how parsers and code evaluation works. I didn't read SICP, but understanding the plumbing of these languages can help ease the transition, at least for me... Regardless, it's a lot of dedicated work that a lot of people don't want to invest.
bmitc 3y ago
> Not all languages are equaly suitable to all tasks. That is true. Although, I would make the argument that F# and OCaml are two of the best most general purpose languages available. They support the imperative, OOP, and functional paradigms effectively equally. About the only thing you wouldn't use them for is embedded real-time programming. Other than that, they're statically typed with great type inference and sane scoping and syntax (I find F# to be the "cleaner" language) and are performant.

staunton 3y ago

CppCon is a very niche audience in my experience. Most "C++ programmers" use a subset of C++11 with some UB sprinkled here and there. When you care about productivity I'm starting to suspect that's actually fine.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

aeonik 3y ago

I'm not surprised people still don't know functional programming at all. It is really such a different way of programming, and if you don't try to write an entire project using the style, it's just too easy to fall back into mutable code, depriving your self of the greater benefits. Most of the code I used to write was just gluing libraries together, even heavily Object Oriented stuff was too complicated and becomes a spider web of dependencies, so I always hunted for better libraries, rather than try to extend existing ones. Now, I've been writing Clojure for about 3 or 4 years, and I still struggle with certain functional and immutable algorithms. But, now when I go back to Python I occasionally get bit very hard from the surprising mutability. So my brain is definitely adjusting to the safety. I'm still not fluent with a lot of higher order functional concepts. Though I think I'm finally understanding Monads and Transducers. It's hard to break 10+ years of imperative habit. What really helped me was diving down into the core of how parsers and code evaluation works. I didn't read SICP, but understanding the plumbing of these languages can help ease the transition, at least for me... Regardless, it's a lot of dedicated work that a lot of people don't want to invest.

bmitc 3y ago

> Not all languages are equaly suitable to all tasks. That is true. Although, I would make the argument that F# and OCaml are two of the best most general purpose languages available. They support the imperative, OOP, and functional paradigms effectively equally. About the only thing you wouldn't use them for is embedded real-time programming. Other than that, they're statically typed with great type inference and sane scoping and syntax (I find F# to be the "cleaner" language) and are performant.