From: SER <ser@...>
Date: 2004-07-13T06:47:23+09:00
Subject: Re: Functional Ruby (Re: Why I don't use Ruby.)

> Still, it's definitely possible to write mostly functional programs
in
> Scheme.

Absolutely.  In fact, on one Scheme site it doesn't even say that
Scheme is a functional language, but that Scheme has features that
allow one to program imperatively or functionally, or OOly.

> One of the most memorable things was writing this Scheme macro:

I know exactly what you mean.  Sometimes monads make my life difficult
and introduce speed-bumps, but list comprehension and pattern matching
is just so *cool*.  I remember when I was doing some reasearch for
parsing arguments, and I saw an example that allowed me to reduce the
entire program execution to *just* the argument parsing segment, by
chaining filters.  I'm still a little in awe of that technique; aside
from the chaining voodoo, it made the application much more readable,
and I don't think I'd have thought of it on my own.  Then again, I'm
not a functional programmer.

I just wish Haskell was faster.

> Thanks for a nice discussion, Sean.

You're welcome, and thank you too.  I definitely learned something in
this thread, which is always good.

--- SER