Best language for starting out in functional programming? (22)

13 Name: #!/usr/bin/anonymous : 2011-06-23 10:54 ID:kxTuZB/4

>>12

No. Functional programming also works in a "predefined algorithm sequence" (that's the whole point of programming, innit).

What it does, it tries to get rid of this idea, which is brittle (i.e. difficult to get right):

You have a state (a bunch of variables with their values at some time t) that you manipulate with procedures so that at time t+1, the values of those variables has changed and the set of variables has changed.

Instead the approach is:

You have functions (machines that transform input values into output values, where the input values and output values can themselves be functions) that you apply on values to get a result (and any state is temporary and just an artifice of expressing how your function works).

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