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But the term 'functional programming' is perhaps even less clear than 'object-oriented programming'. Is a language that can pass a function 'as data' a function

But the term 'functional programming' is perhaps even less clear than 'object-oriented programming'. Is a language that can pass a function 'as data' a functional language? Does it need to support tail recursion elimination? Does it need to be pure? Does it need to support algebraic datatypes? Should everything be an expression? I am also not sure if programming trends follow circular time. I haven't seen logic programming making a big return and OO and FP are still in its first cycle. It just took FP ages to go from stage 1 to 3 (outside niches).

MichaelGG 13y ago
HoF is functional nature. The rest just help things along that path. I'm not sure why people get so hyper about classifying things. The map is not the territory. Where you draw lines has no bearing on how easy it is to attain functional style in a language. FP is far more clear a concept than OOP. OOP has no real fundamentals apart from encapsulation, which really isn't specific to OOP. OOP is whatever haphazard setup a language designer feels like using. FP concepts (like the ones you mentioned) are pretty clear across languages. FP is certainly in its first cycle; ML just keeps going on. Industry is only now catching on.