From: Mikael Brockman <phubuh@...>
Date: 2004-07-14T08:06:50+09:00
Subject: Re: Functional Ruby (Re: Why I don't use Ruby.)

"Sean O'Dell" <sean@celsoft.com> writes:

> On Tuesday 13 July 2004 15:22, Florian Gross wrote:
>> Sean O'Dell wrote:
>> >
>> > I know, but I was trying to illustrate how some people seem to get
>> > the rule against assignment operators confused with simple
>> > assignment.  You can assign values to variables in a functional
>> > language, you just have to do it through a function call; the
>> > assignment is permitted, however.  We're in agreement.
>>
>> I'm not sure we're that rule is coming from -- do you remember any
>> sources for this or could you try to explain why it exists for yourself?
>
> I just found a great primer on FP, and I think I have either forgotten a lot 
> of it from my LISP days, or LISP never had these FP features I'm reading 
> about.  This is really a very authoritative, clear and concise explanation:
>
> 	http://www.cs.nyu.edu/goldberg/pubs/gold96.pdf

Do you realize that paper disproves both of your claims?  It uses
operators and explicitly disallows all assignment and side-effects.

  mikael