From: Christophe Grandsire Date: 2005-09-30T04:42:50+09:00 Subject: Re: In your opinion.... Daniel Lewis wrote: > > OK I agree with what you say about this. But according to this site: > http://www.jvoegele.com/software/langcomp.html > Ruby has the ability to be used as a functional language (as well as > Smalltalk, Python, Perl and Eiffel). > Well, as long as one can do higher-order functions, one can eventually program in a functional way. But not necessarily nicely ;) . > In my final year of university (which starts in September 2006), I > will be learning Hugs (a Haskell varient) for Functional > Programming... it will be interesting how it compares to Ruby, and I > would like to learn how to use Ruby as a functional language. > You'll find out Haskell is quite a different beast. It has interesting features, but it doesn't have much in common with imperative languages like Ruby. Its IO model is �bercool though (completely functional, which is quite a feat, and basically making IO actions into objects rather than actions. But if you really want to understand how it works, you need to understand the monad, which is quite an esoteric mathematical notion - and I'm someone who used to eat distributions for breakfast, so abstract mathematical notions normally don't frighten me ;) -). Yet it's a great way to open your mind to other possibilities, and to a language where space is meaningful which is not Python ;) . > I'll be using Ruby for my dissertation, I'll be developing some type > of program that uses Fuzzy Logic... possibly something to do with > Robotics, Agents or Control... not sure yet. > Interesting... -- Christophe Grandsire. http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.