From: Chad Perrin <code@...>
Date: 2011-04-05T00:07:32+09:00
Subject: Re: functional paradigm taking over

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On Mon, Apr 04, 2011 at 07:00:19PM +0900, Phillip Gawlowski wrote:
>=20
> B) Define "accessibility". Surely you aren't saying that the UI of a
> program is related to which language it was written in. If you mean
> issues like maintainable code, isn't a strictly logical, mathematical
> structure preferable, especially if it can be analyzed (tooling is our
> friend) with the help of other programs? If, indeed, the code can be
> *proven* to be correct (proven in the mathematical sense)?

I believe the ability to pick up the basic syntax of the language, and
grasp the basic semantics of it with relative ease, so that one need not
be a lifelong student of the language to be able to pick up an average
program and understand it well enough to maintain it in fairly short
order, is important to the intent of Mike's preceding statement, which is
not addressed in this commentary about accessibility.  More about that in
a moment.


>=20
> C) Why should someone with less capability be taken care off by going
> onto their levels, instead of helping them to reach new heights (we
> could call such an effort "No Coder Left Behind")? Maths isn't hard,
> nor is programming. So this smells like the plot of "Harrison Bergeron"
> to me.

I agree this is, all else being equal, a good approach to take.


>=20
> D) Wouldn't a person with less capability be aided by code that follows
> simple, logical rules?

I agree that, all else being equal, this point is relevant and meaningful
here.

The thing is . . . I don't think that matters much.  Mike seems to be
trying to make the argument that functional paradigm software development
techniques somehow necessarily make programming a more opaque, arcane
process than some other approach.  I disagree quite strongly with that
assumption.  What characteristic of functional programming techniques
could possibly render the whole exercise of programming so difficult to
fathom that we cannot present the user with a friendly syntax?

How does providing the developer with the ability to write a recursive
function that can be easily grasped by someone who bothers to learn a
bare minimum of the language's syntax -- as an alternative to forcing
developers to write do-while loops in C that require a page and a half of
code -- in any way make the language less understandable?

=2E . . and let's not even approach the problem of how one would create an
event loop to scale up to millions of simultaneous requests in MS Excel
minus the capability of using callbacks for asynchronous I/O.

--=20
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]

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