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I like that the article calls then "functional data structures". Every time I call them by their real name (persistent data structures), _at least_ one person w

by augustl 13y ago

I like that the article calls then "functional data structures". Every time I call them by their real name (persistent data structures), _at least_ one person will get confused and think I'm talking about serialization to disk.

theothershoe 13y ago
I consistently see the same problem. That is exactly why I use the word "functional".
- TheZenPsycho 13y ago
  what's wrong with "immutable" ?
  - augustl 13y ago
    Immutable does not imply persistence/structural sharing, a key aspect of these data structures.
pmahoney 13y ago
Is is possible to construct a persistent data structure that is not referentially transparent? I suspect the answer is yes, depending on how you define side effects (example: a persistent array that logs operations). Which would mean "functional" is a more general adjective than "persistent" since it includes both persistence and referential transparency. Wikipedia[1] claims "There also exist persistent data structures which use destructible operations, making them impossible to implement efficiently in purely functional languages" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_data_structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_data_structure
- augustl 13y ago
  "Persistent" is but a bullet point on Clojure's own explanation of its data strucures, so I suppose we as a community should follow in the official docs' footsteps :) http://clojure.org/data_structures http://clojure.org/data_structures