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I don't want to disencourage good initiatives and experiments, but if is not a technology that creates a "space" where "Everything is a.." then I won't be excit

I don't want to disencourage good initiatives and experiments, but if is not a technology that creates a "space" where "Everything is a.." then I won't be excited because is not going to be paradigmatic by design. When "Everything is a.." you're forced to do a lot with little and that's really powerful. And creates a paradigm. Some examples of it: LISP: "Everything is an Expression" Haskell and Miranda: "Everything is a Function" Self and Smalltalk: "Everything is an Object"

rntz 12y ago
I can't speak for Smalltalk or Miranda, but not everything in Haskell is a function, and not everything in Lisp is an expression. The case in Haskell is obvious: 2, "foo", (Data.Set.singleton 3); none of these are functions. Functional programming isn't about "everything is a function", it's about (among other things) making functions first-class, and using higher-order functions to build powerful abstractions. (There are also a lot of other things associated with FP, incl. but not limited to: immutability, purity, powerful static type systems, focus on "plain old data" over OO hierarchies, laziness, etc). If you want a language in which everything is a function, you want the untyped lambda calculus. The case in Lisp is a little less obvious; I've been meaning to write a blog post about this. But consider: (let ((x 0)) x) Is `((x 0))` an expression? No. It's a list of binding-pairs.
- pdubroy 12y ago
  Why isn't a list an expression?
- sebastianconcpt 12y ago
  Yes, in LISP everything is an expression
- sebastianconcpt 12y ago
  If you want we remove the Haskell reference as invalid example, be my guest. The idea that I'm bringing in is not any less true because of that.
ryanmk 12y ago
I'm intrigued by your comment that being forced to do a lot with a little is powerful. Do you have any arguments or evidence for that you could point me to?
- sebastianconcpt 12y ago
  If you can do a lot with little means you are resourceful. That's powerful by definition. So there you have a pragmatic yet theoretical foundation. Just by being somehow basically-reductionist, you'll see that the Universe does a lot with just electrons, protons and photons, yes? Well... if you for example adhere to String Theory then you will be able to model a lot with just strings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory "Everything is a String" => you have something Paradigmatic. A "space" or "knowledge body" that can explain a lot using little. That's what I mean by being paradigmatic. If you want more reference on this principle and you take the Quantum way, one thing you'll find is that you can explain a lot with little too. There is actually a theorem that deducts Newton's second law using only Schrödinger's Equation as foundation. But since I've talked about this here I've won 3 downvotes, then you can rest for sure that the Universe is broken.

rntz 12y ago

I can't speak for Smalltalk or Miranda, but not everything in Haskell is a function, and not everything in Lisp is an expression. The case in Haskell is obvious: 2, "foo", (Data.Set.singleton 3); none of these are functions. Functional programming isn't about "everything is a function", it's about (among other things) making functions first-class, and using higher-order functions to build powerful abstractions. (There are also a lot of other things associated with FP, incl. but not limited to: immutability, purity, powerful static type systems, focus on "plain old data" over OO hierarchies, laziness, etc). If you want a language in which everything is a function, you want the untyped lambda calculus. The case in Lisp is a little less obvious; I've been meaning to write a blog post about this. But consider: (let ((x 0)) x) Is `((x 0))` an expression? No. It's a list of binding-pairs.

pdubroy 12y ago
Why isn't a list an expression?
sebastianconcpt 12y ago
Yes, in LISP everything is an expression
sebastianconcpt 12y ago
If you want we remove the Haskell reference as invalid example, be my guest. The idea that I'm bringing in is not any less true because of that.

ryanmk 12y ago

I'm intrigued by your comment that being forced to do a lot with a little is powerful. Do you have any arguments or evidence for that you could point me to?

sebastianconcpt 12y ago
If you can do a lot with little means you are resourceful. That's powerful by definition. So there you have a pragmatic yet theoretical foundation. Just by being somehow basically-reductionist, you'll see that the Universe does a lot with just electrons, protons and photons, yes? Well... if you for example adhere to String Theory then you will be able to model a lot with just strings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory "Everything is a String" => you have something Paradigmatic. A "space" or "knowledge body" that can explain a lot using little. That's what I mean by being paradigmatic. If you want more reference on this principle and you take the Quantum way, one thing you'll find is that you can explain a lot with little too. There is actually a theorem that deducts Newton's second law using only Schrödinger's Equation as foundation. But since I've talked about this here I've won 3 downvotes, then you can rest for sure that the Universe is broken.