On Sunday, February 16, 2014 10:15:58 AM UTC+5:30, Sam wrote: > I would like to learn and try out functional programming (FP). I love Python > and would like to use it to try FP. Some have advised me to use Haskell > instead because Python is not a good language for FP. I am sort of confused > at the moment. Is Python a dysfunctional programming language to apply FP? > Can the more experienced Python users advise?
For many years I taught programming in which a pure functional language was the 'mother-tongue' and was followed by a multi-paradigm language. In the 90s the pair was Miranda + Scheme; after 2001 it was a haskell (wee-subset) + python. Two of the bedrock items for a FP education is 1. Getting Hindley-Milner* 2. Lambda Calculus 1 python does not have at all and 2 is ok but not great. Once Hindley-Milner is in your bones -- yeah its radioactive and harmless -- you can happily think in pseudo-Haskell and code in(to) python (or C++ or whatever) The syllabus I made and used (well kindof :-) ) http://www.the-magus.in/Publications/ip.pdf I must say I am not personally too happy with haskell's direction today -- its 'progress' looks quite like how C++ 'progresses' C. [Yeah this does not amount to a very helpful direction :-( ] In more abstract, here is a blog-post of mine http://blog.languager.org/2012/10/functional-programming-lost-booty.html which lists out (in very brief) concepts/features that originated from FP and would benefit programmers irrespective of language/paradigm/technology they are currently into. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
