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Today's Topics:
1. A Key Part of Functional Programming (Costello, Roger L.)
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:21:08 +0000
From: "Costello, Roger L." <[email protected]>
Subject: [Haskell-beginners] A Key Part of Functional Programming
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hi Folks,
Richard Bird write on page 91 of his book, "Introduction to Functional
Programming using Haskell":
The datatype of lists is the workhorse
of functional programming.
Notice that he does not say that lists are the workhorse of "Haskell." No. He
makes a much broader statement. Lists are the workhorse of Haskell and Lisp and
Miranda and all the functional languages. Lists are a key part of functional
languages.
On page 95 he defines the list concatenation operator:
(++) :: [a] -> [a] -> [a]
[] ++ ys = ys
(x:xs) ++ ys = x : (xs ++ ys)
Then on page 96 he states:
Once one has come to grips with the definition of ++,
one has understood a good deal about how lists work
in functional languages.
Again notice that he does not say that by coming to grips with the definition
of ++ one will have a good understanding of how lists work in "Haskell." No. He
makes a much broader statement. One will have a good understanding of how lists
work in all functional languages. Although the syntax may change, this
definition of concatenation is for all functional languages.
Wow! That is so cool.
/Roger
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End of Beginners Digest, Vol 54, Issue 32
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