Re: OO versus RDB

S Perryman wrote:
> "Marshall" <marshall.spight_at_gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1152200036.255450.235950_at_p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Daniel Parker wrote:
>
> >> 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?
>
> > Sounds exactly right. Functional by default, imperative when necessary.
>
> We already have that in Lisp et al.

Oh, sure. And SML.

> > It's also entirely possible (as I think you're implying) to have a
> > language
> > that allowed one to write a function that is "pure" (in that its
> > outputs
> > depend solely on its parameters) but whose implementation was
> > imperative. The functional guys *hate* it when I point this out. :-)
>
> You can't really hate the difference between specification and
> implementation.
>
> But they could live with imperative impls (which will probably be the
> exception
> rather than the rule) .
>
> You would get a beating though if those imperative impls have side
> effects. :-)

Heh. Funny you should mention that. It's also the case that one can have a function that writes to global variables but doesn't *read* from them, and it will *still* be pure, in that the outputs depend only on the inputs.

The functional guys *really* hate it when I say *that*.

Marshall Received on Fri Jul 07 2006 - 16:55:13 CEST