4 ms·

Mainstream languages are not expression orientated like true FP languages are. Most people working in mainstream languages aren’t aware of the significance of t

• __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  One thing that struck me while learning nushell is that instead of: $ echo "hello world" hello world I can do: $ "hello world" hello world Is this an indication that it is expression oriented? (just checking that I've understood the phrase).
  • ryandv 2y ago
    This is the statement/expression distinction; `echo "hello world"` is a statement that, when evaluated, has the side effect of printing "hello world" to stdout (or wherever), and has no value (for the purposes of this example). `"hello world"` is an expression with the literal string value "hello world"; your REPL probably prints out that expression's value once it is evaluated for convenience. FWIW I'm not actually familiar with nushell and am speaking fairly generally about statements vs. expressions.
  • acchow 2y ago
    Yes. Essentially, statements have no value (or return no value). Expressions have a value.
• peterbecich 2y ago
  I will add to that the other big difference is how much the compiler enforces the style.