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Every OOP developer is on a journey, they just don't know it. Some of them will never make it. But some will reach a point of realisation where writing well-des

by nbevans 12y ago

Every OOP developer is on a journey, they just don't know it. Some of them will never make it. But some will reach a point of realisation where writing well-designed software comes naturally to them because they've inadvertently stumbled upon the core concepts of functional programming. It then requires them to realise that what they've found is just FP and then requires a further minor step to actually learn a more appropriate language. Once this developer makes that jump he reaches a new plain of development happiness and a feeling of power over OOP practicers because his level of productivity has magnified by about 3x. Enabling themselves to allocate brain power to more important issues. That's just called progress though. Having said that, I dislike articles like this because they shout too loudly. Just use a proper hybrid OO-FP (ala F# / Scala etc) language and be done with it. These languages are designed for business productivity - not academic box ticking. Everybody happy.

skybrian 12y ago
It's also possible that they're on a journey to Go, not FP.
tlarkworthy 12y ago
I made the switch to FP. I first learnt Basic then Delphi then C then Java then C# then Python then JS and now Scala. Python is my still my favourite and I really like Scala too. Anyway, I could write big stuff in any typed language OO or otherwise. I don't get what the revelation about FP is. If you want bullet proof code, get the model checker out and work in state machines. That is far the biggest revelation I have had in my career. FP doesn't save me much time or much safety . It doesn't solve concurrency. Its usually terser which is nice. That's about it. Python is a massive productivity boost but it doesn't scale. Scala scales but isn't that productive IMHO.
- chas 12y ago
  I'm not going to claim it solves concurrency, but Haskell's combination of STM, expressive types, and immutable data by default make it the nicest language I have used for concurrency. (I have heard similar praise of Clojure as well, but I don't have any experience with it.)
- frowaway001 12y ago
  I found Scala to be hugely more productive than Python.
mpweiher 12y ago
What arrogant hogwash. I was exposed to functional programming my first year at university (it was used in the introductory courses) and quickly noticed that contrary to the hype (similar to yours), functional programs tended to be more bloated with trying to work around limitations of the less expressive programming model/language and not particularly more robust. That doesn't mean certain aspects can't be nice to have ('let' is kinda nice), but even that is mostly for programming-in-the-small. Your unsubstantiated claim of 3x productivity increase is, er, "interesting".
- nbevans 12y ago
  Don't worry, you haven't reached the right level of experience yet. You'll get there, though you have some attitude problems to overcome first like most young programmers.
  - frowaway001 12y ago
    I wonder why the parent comment is downvoted. He's dead on.
    - AnimalMuppet 12y ago
      nbevans made a post dripping with condescension and arrogance. mpweiher pointed that out. nbevans replied with... more arrogance and condescension. And you wonder why he got downvoted? He's also (at least partly) wrong, and so are you. FP has it's place. But what people like you and nbevans never seem to realize is that the rest of the programming world is neither stupid nor ignorant. Yes, there are better ways of working than the ways that we work. Yes, we don't know all of those ways, even though some people do. But that's true for you, too. There are people who are ignorant about FP. There are also people who are both smarter than you and more experienced than you, who do not use FP for good reasons. But you and nbevans arrogantly tell us that once we learn enough, we'll see that you're right. Your inexcusable assumption that everyone who disagrees with you has to be both wrong and ignorant is why you're getting downvoted.
jl6 12y ago
If you think you have found the silver bullet then you are still on the journey too.
- nbevans 12y ago
  I don't think that. I think I found a big productivity boost and the ability to focus the mind on more important issues than trying to repetitively trick a imperative language design to do what I want. Always looking for the next step on the journey. (It isn't Go)
zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
You don't sound arrogant and condescending at all. Here is the truth: in a few years, you'll realize that OOP is actually vastly superior to FP. It's okay if you don't believe me right now, you haven't progressed enough yet. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. If you succeed, you'll look back on FP and you will wonder how you could ever tolerate such an inferior programming model.

by nbevans 12y ago

skybrian 12y ago

It's also possible that they're on a journey to Go, not FP.

tlarkworthy 12y ago

I made the switch to FP. I first learnt Basic then Delphi then C then Java then C# then Python then JS and now Scala. Python is my still my favourite and I really like Scala too. Anyway, I could write big stuff in any typed language OO or otherwise. I don't get what the revelation about FP is. If you want bullet proof code, get the model checker out and work in state machines. That is far the biggest revelation I have had in my career. FP doesn't save me much time or much safety . It doesn't solve concurrency. Its usually terser which is nice. That's about it. Python is a massive productivity boost but it doesn't scale. Scala scales but isn't that productive IMHO.

chas 12y ago
I'm not going to claim it solves concurrency, but Haskell's combination of STM, expressive types, and immutable data by default make it the nicest language I have used for concurrency. (I have heard similar praise of Clojure as well, but I don't have any experience with it.)
frowaway001 12y ago
I found Scala to be hugely more productive than Python.

mpweiher 12y ago

What arrogant hogwash. I was exposed to functional programming my first year at university (it was used in the introductory courses) and quickly noticed that contrary to the hype (similar to yours), functional programs tended to be more bloated with trying to work around limitations of the less expressive programming model/language and not particularly more robust. That doesn't mean certain aspects can't be nice to have ('let' is kinda nice), but even that is mostly for programming-in-the-small. Your unsubstantiated claim of 3x productivity increase is, er, "interesting".

nbevans 12y ago
Don't worry, you haven't reached the right level of experience yet. You'll get there, though you have some attitude problems to overcome first like most young programmers.
- frowaway001 12y ago
  I wonder why the parent comment is downvoted. He's dead on.
  - AnimalMuppet 12y ago
    nbevans made a post dripping with condescension and arrogance. mpweiher pointed that out. nbevans replied with... more arrogance and condescension. And you wonder why he got downvoted? He's also (at least partly) wrong, and so are you. FP has it's place. But what people like you and nbevans never seem to realize is that the rest of the programming world is neither stupid nor ignorant. Yes, there are better ways of working than the ways that we work. Yes, we don't know all of those ways, even though some people do. But that's true for you, too. There are people who are ignorant about FP. There are also people who are both smarter than you and more experienced than you, who do not use FP for good reasons. But you and nbevans arrogantly tell us that once we learn enough, we'll see that you're right. Your inexcusable assumption that everyone who disagrees with you has to be both wrong and ignorant is why you're getting downvoted.

jl6 12y ago

If you think you have found the silver bullet then you are still on the journey too.

nbevans 12y ago
I don't think that. I think I found a big productivity boost and the ability to focus the mind on more important issues than trying to repetitively trick a imperative language design to do what I want. Always looking for the next step on the journey. (It isn't Go)

zak_mc_kracken 12y ago

You don't sound arrogant and condescending at all. Here is the truth: in a few years, you'll realize that OOP is actually vastly superior to FP. It's okay if you don't believe me right now, you haven't progressed enough yet. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. If you succeed, you'll look back on FP and you will wonder how you could ever tolerate such an inferior programming model.