From: Nicholas Van Weerdenburg <nick@...>
Date: 2004-07-14T12:16:39+09:00
Subject: Re: Functional Ruby (Re: Why I don't use Ruby.)

In University, I worked with a language called Turing that had both 
procedures and functions.  Is that a common idiom?

In Ruby, would it be possible to extend "def" and maybe introduce a 
feature called "func" that adds some extra rules to what can be coded?

Thanks,
Nick

Florian Gross wrote:

> 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
>