From: Phillip Gawlowski Date: 2011-04-04T05:07:39+09:00 Subject: Re: Lambda Shambda On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 9:03 PM, Chad Perrin wrote: > > They aren't all "so difficult".  They just reward a different approach to > automation than Excel -- an approach that does not overconsume resources > so much, that scales better, that allows for easier composition of > complex algorithms from simple algorithms, and that supports greater > productivity for the expert. And provides a certain beauty in clarity and logic, that only maths can provide, IME. > Actually, the consequences of that kind of thinking results in > programming languages that allow us to leverage our capabilities much > more efficiently (and I'm not just talking about clock cycles, here), so > that we can build upon past advances to produce more substantial and > amazing advances in the future. Like concurrency being a "free by" of functional languages, thanks to immutable data, and lambda calculus allows for easy parallelization, since the algorithm is already broken down into its simplest pieces. > Giving up on the cutting edge just > because you don't understand it yet only limits you. Considering that the idea of a "compiler" appeared around 1952 (with the first complete compiler appearing in '57, called FORTRAN, apparently), and LISP was formalized in 1958, it's not really that cutting edge, either. Nor is functional programming, if we consider APL from 1957*... It's just that compilers moved into the mainstream relatively fast, and only now that Moore's Law is breaking down, and we are thus using multiple cores even in the cheapest hardware (there's dual-core phones now, ferchrissakes), that the issues of concurrency and parallelization come to the fore, and with them functional programming. * I consider immutable data to be key to functional programming, and LISP doesn't work that way, so *I* don't see it as a functional language. YMMV, of course. -- Phillip Gawlowski Though the folk I have met, (Ah, how soon!) they forget When I've moved on to some other place, There may be one or two, When I've played and passed through, Who'll remember my song or my face.