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I'm not so sure that in FP communities recursive call based algorithms are thought of as elegant solution; rather higher abstractions are desirable (e.g. map, f

• jacquesm 12y ago
  It's considered elegant because that way you only need functions, no other constructs required.
• rat87 12y ago
  How do you implement map without tco or loops?(I'm not saying this is impossible just that I can't think of a way to do it of the top of my head)
  • skybrian 12y ago
    Sure, it's all gotos at the machine level. There's nothing wrong with implementing map that way. The point is to use a higher-level, less free-form control structure when it matches the problem, because it gives the reader more information.
  • plorkyeran 12y ago
    Basically you want to always use the least powerful tool you can to solve a problem. When applicable, map is better than foldl not because it's more concise, but because it tells the reader that the result is a list of the same length of the input, and the elements of the input are processed independently. Similarly, foldl is better than raw recursion because it tells the reader that every element in the input list is being processed in order, rather than potentially anything happening. There's nothing wrong with using the more powerful tools when you need them (such as when implementing the more restricted tools). It's just that needing them frequently is a sign that you're doing weird things and should take a second look at your design to make sure there isn't a better way to do things.