Re: OO versus RDB

S Perryman wrote:
> "Daniel Parker" <danielaparker_at_gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1152186211.639700.279770_at_j8g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> A fellow undergrad in my year (this was 1988) implemented ray-tracing using
> FP.
> The images he was rendering were not trivial, and the output was not much
> slower (allegedly) than other 'standard' implementations.
>
> You will find that many maths algorithms are suitable for attack by FP.
>
> But the problem IMHO is that the procedural/imperative mindset is so strong
> in us all (cultural perhaps ?? ) that the massive values in / massive values
> out
> becomes difficult to comprehend (it was for me with the ray-tracing stuff)
> without the "mental crutch" of holding intermediate values/results that
> procedural/imperative allows.

The other issue is the impracticality of revisiting all the prior algorithmic work - with numerics, starting with a clean slate is not really an option for people with finite lives.

I think what I would like to have is a hybrid language, that would allow me to implement a function with imperative techniques, permitting mutable data structures for building immutable objects, aka StringBuffer/String in Java, and a pure functional higher view. Does that sound sensible? Or stupid?

Daniel Received on Thu Jul 06 2006 - 10:20:42 CDT