Re:What is a functional programming language?
by cyrus_ on Thursday January 13, 2011 @11:18PM
(#2102525)
Let me clarify that a bit further -- I'm not excluding languages which offer mutable data structures, even in standard libraries. I'm simply excluding languages where the use of these data structures are de-emphasized.
This isn't a precise scientific definition of a functional language, but one that seems to quite cleanly differentiate languages like Haskell and ML from languages like Javascript and C#, all of which have first-class functions.
Re:What is a functional programming language?
by dfox on Friday January 14, 2011 @08:05AM
(#2103352)
Your definition also clearly differentiate between "Common Lisp as is taught on universities" and "Common Lisp as it's actually used", which might or might not be a good sign.
This isn't a precise scientific definition of a functional language, but one that seems to quite cleanly differentiate languages like Haskell and ML from languages like Javascript and C#, all of which have first-class functions.