Re:Why Learn Haskell? (2018)
by lelanthran on Monday March 01, 2021 @08:58AM
(#26302783)
> Since functional languages are based on the mathematical idea of function application, this is a weird request.
Well, imperative languages are based on the idea of a turing machine, but they look nothing like one.
>imperative languages are based on the idea of a turing machine
In what way? I wouldn't count executing sequential instructions as a "the idea of a turing machine", and no major imperative language has programs which have only finitely many states along with an infinite memory space that is both code and data.
Since functional languages are based on the mathematical idea of function application, this is a weird request. What would a C-style functional language even look like? Most functional languages have syntax for doing a imperative-style sequence of assignments before producing a result. Beyond that, the risk is that C-style code will make the programmer think that the language itself is like C, Java, or other imperative languages - which fundamentally, it wouldn't be.