From: gabriele renzi <surrender_it@...1.vip.ukl.yahoo.com>
Date: 2004-07-10T09:12:29+09:00
Subject: Re: Functional Ruby (Re: Why I don't use Ruby.)

il Sat, 10 Jul 2004 06:18:56 +0900, "Sean O'Dell" <sean@celsoft.com>
ha scritto::

..
>
>I think that's an implementation feature, not a fundamental property of a 
>functional language.  There's no reason a functional language can't have use 
>memory space lexically any way it sees fit.  The outcome is the same: nothing 
>stateful affects function performance, so you get consistent return values 
>for your input.

no, referential transparency seem to be at the core of the definition
of pure OO. I'm not an expert anyway, but you could like to take a
look at a recent thread in comp.lang.smalltalk about this, look for
"is smalltalk a functional language".


>I think those sorts of properties are assigned after observing existing 
>implementations, and don't really describe the core nature of a "functional 
>language."
>
>If I implemented a language that was functional in nature, except that, within 
>a function you could overwrite your own variable values, programmers using 
>the language are virtually unaffected.  They simply have to treat their own 
>variables slightly differently, but all the benefits of functional 
>programming are unchanged.


you won't have the ability to handle the code with the 'sobstitution
model' that is, I think, the model commonly used to describe FP