Re: Quote from comp.object

On Mar 5, 11:48 am, "DBMS_Plumber" <paul_geoffrey_br..._at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Mar 5, 11:34 am, "Marshall" <marshall.spi..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Erlang for example is a programming language whose computational
> > model can support hundreds of thousands of simultaneous processes,
> > yet has very high reliability and uptime.
>
> I could be convinced of this. It's an attractive idea, but speaking
> purely as a plumber, you're going to have a very hard time convincing
> me that higher level 'functional' languages are a practical platform
> for implementing something like a DBMS.

I tend to agree, actually. I think enforced purity isn't a great idea. However, I believe that purity ought to be the default. Today, most programmers use imperative techniques for virtually everything, and only occasionally drop in to a pure mode. I think a better way to be would be to reverse that, and only use imperative techniques when necessary and with the consciousness that you're doing something different. I think the success of impurely functional languages (SML, O'Caml) supports this idea.

Marshall Received on Mon Mar 05 2007 - 15:34:10 CST