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I wonder why no functional language has the degree of success imperative or OOP languages have. Is functional programming too weird for majority of computer pr

I wonder why no functional language has the degree of success imperative or OOP languages have. Is functional programming too weird for majority of computer programmers? Is functional programming not optimal for solving industry problems? Maybe there is no functional programming that that is up to some set of standards? Is functional programming too complicated? I do enjoy functional programming myself, and while I don't use a functional programming language at work, I try to use functional programming paradigms when I finds it suits the probem.

cageface 2y ago
Functional programming languages haven't gone mainstream but functional techniques are very common now. Higher order functions, immutable data structures, declarative UI frameworks, etc are things you're quite likely to encounter in a contemporary codebase these days.
- DeathArrow 2y ago
  That's what I said. I do use functional programming techniques, I just wonder why functional programming languages don't see a larger following.
  - cageface 2y ago
    Good question. I suspect it's because the downsides of losing the larger ecosystem of more mainstream languages outweigh the upsides of a functional language. The libraries, package managers, tooling, runtime, debuggers, documentation, and editors etc just aren't anywhere near as mature for Haskell or Ocaml as they are for Typescript or Python, for example.
    - nequo 2y ago
      Debugging is a known sore point with OCaml for example. But what is the problem with the Haskell RTS or the OCaml runtime? Why is it not “anywhere as mature” as Python’s or something like Node for JS? Python’s had the GIL while Haskell has had a well functioning parallelized runtime for a long time. And both Haskell and OCaml’s runtimes outperform Python’s and are on par with Node.[1] As for documentation, every time I come back to Hoogle,[2] I remember how I miss it in other languages that just don’t have anything similar going. The lack of types doesn’t help, and reading the documentation of the Python standard library or a popular library like torch is sometimes like solving a puzzle because it’s unclear what a function or a class constructor really does or even what class’ instance it returns. [1] https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/box-plot-summary-charts.html https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/... for CPU usage but their memory usage is comparable too, and OCaml’s benefits from the language’s eagerness. [2] https://hoogle.haskell.org/ https://hoogle.haskell.org/
  - freilanzer 2y ago
    Inertia of languages like Java, C, C++, C#, etc. due to university and existing projects. Also managers wanting a huge recruiting pool.
  - tankorsmash 2y ago
    I didn't get anything close to that from your original message. I thought you meant "I write functional JS, but am wondering why a language like clojure or OCaml isn't more popular"
- yiyu_earth 2y ago
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dgb23 2y ago
There are degrees and different shades of "success" and "functional programming". Clojure is successful, stable and well maintained. However it is a niche language compared the big mainstream languages. It takes a functional approach by default, but doesn't shy away from other paradigms/patterns/idioms when appropriate. Functional programming itself has had a huge influence on mainstream languages since about a decade and a half. More and more pragmatic features have been introduced in mainstream languages. Newer languages have adopted functional idioms from the get go. On the macro level as well, ops and architecture have been adopting statelessness, reproducibility and so on. The consensus has shifted towards containing state. The more moving parts you have, the harder it gets to reason about a whole thing. Treating data as data. OOP has also changed and got refined over this time. I think people realized that it has good ideas (generic interfaces, polymorphism etc.) and bad ideas (inheritance, local state etc.). Same thing with FP, there's stuff that's esoteric and too far from the reality of actual programming and stuff that is pragmatic and simplifying in there.

cageface 2y ago

Functional programming languages haven't gone mainstream but functional techniques are very common now. Higher order functions, immutable data structures, declarative UI frameworks, etc are things you're quite likely to encounter in a contemporary codebase these days.

DeathArrow 2y ago
That's what I said. I do use functional programming techniques, I just wonder why functional programming languages don't see a larger following.
- cageface 2y ago
  Good question. I suspect it's because the downsides of losing the larger ecosystem of more mainstream languages outweigh the upsides of a functional language. The libraries, package managers, tooling, runtime, debuggers, documentation, and editors etc just aren't anywhere near as mature for Haskell or Ocaml as they are for Typescript or Python, for example.
  - nequo 2y ago
    Debugging is a known sore point with OCaml for example. But what is the problem with the Haskell RTS or the OCaml runtime? Why is it not “anywhere as mature” as Python’s or something like Node for JS? Python’s had the GIL while Haskell has had a well functioning parallelized runtime for a long time. And both Haskell and OCaml’s runtimes outperform Python’s and are on par with Node.[1] As for documentation, every time I come back to Hoogle,[2] I remember how I miss it in other languages that just don’t have anything similar going. The lack of types doesn’t help, and reading the documentation of the Python standard library or a popular library like torch is sometimes like solving a puzzle because it’s unclear what a function or a class constructor really does or even what class’ instance it returns. [1] https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/box-plot-summary-charts.html https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/... for CPU usage but their memory usage is comparable too, and OCaml’s benefits from the language’s eagerness. [2] https://hoogle.haskell.org/ https://hoogle.haskell.org/
- freilanzer 2y ago
  Inertia of languages like Java, C, C++, C#, etc. due to university and existing projects. Also managers wanting a huge recruiting pool.
- tankorsmash 2y ago
  I didn't get anything close to that from your original message. I thought you meant "I write functional JS, but am wondering why a language like clojure or OCaml isn't more popular"
yiyu_earth 2y ago
[dead]

dgb23 2y ago

There are degrees and different shades of "success" and "functional programming". Clojure is successful, stable and well maintained. However it is a niche language compared the big mainstream languages. It takes a functional approach by default, but doesn't shy away from other paradigms/patterns/idioms when appropriate. Functional programming itself has had a huge influence on mainstream languages since about a decade and a half. More and more pragmatic features have been introduced in mainstream languages. Newer languages have adopted functional idioms from the get go. On the macro level as well, ops and architecture have been adopting statelessness, reproducibility and so on. The consensus has shifted towards containing state. The more moving parts you have, the harder it gets to reason about a whole thing. Treating data as data. OOP has also changed and got refined over this time. I think people realized that it has good ideas (generic interfaces, polymorphism etc.) and bad ideas (inheritance, local state etc.). Same thing with FP, there's stuff that's esoteric and too far from the reality of actual programming and stuff that is pragmatic and simplifying in there.