From: Florian Gross <flgr@...>
Date: 2004-07-14T06:27:22+09:00
Subject: Re: Functional Ruby (Re: Why I don't use Ruby.)

Sean O'Dell wrote:

> Here's a question: are "pure" functional programming languages implemented 
> according to their own rules?  Internally, do they also never use variables?  
> My guess is: no, or almost never.  They break the rules internally to provide 
> an interface that adheres to the rules.

It depends. Functional languages implemented in functional languages 
will be written in a functional style of course. C is no functional 
language, but most function language interpreters are written in C where 
you have so many side effects that you *have* to capture different 
states into variables.

The idea of functional languages is that the only thing a function is 
able to give to the outside is its return value.

In such a pure functional world variables are no longer needed, because 
you can just use the function call itself where you would otherwise need 
to use the value that was captured to the variable.

> They break the rules internally to provide 
> an interface that adheres to the rules.  In my opinion, a "pure" functional 
> language would allow you to develop your own functions and use local 
> variables so long as your functions interacted predictably with the outside 
> world.
> It wouldn't be a "pure" functional language, but I would still call it a 
> functional language.

Ruby doesn't use Objects at all in its implementation. In fact C doesn't 
even have Objects. Yet Ruby is a pure object-oriented language.

The implementation really has nothing to do with this IMHO. It's not 
really part of the interface after all. :) (And there can be multiple 
interpreters for the same language all written in different languages of 
course. The really interesting parts of this are language interpreters 
that are written in the very same language that they interpret.)

Regards,
Florian Gross