Re: Language interop hga@xxxxxx 11 Sep 2020 18:30 UTC

From: Lassi Kortela <xxxxxx@lassi.io>
Date: Friday, September 11, 2020 1:14 PM

> [ big snip. ]

> It worries me a lot that the point of programming is to write
> applications, and language designers are too wedded to making
> intricate faberge egg like things because they can. Python has the
> right idea in making things simple and accessible. Unfortunately
> they made them so accessible that they threw out effective lambdas
> and don't have the elegant consistency of Scheme.

Not sure that's the real story of Python and functional programming;
the until recently BDFL Guido van Rossum apparently hates FP, proposed
to remove all of it that had crept into Python 2 in the change to
Python 3, but reversed after a substantial backlash.

This is one of the reasons I despair at using Python as a major
language *for CS students*; if the required curriculum doesn't include
another language that supports functional programming well and of
course also teaches FP, it really short changes its graduates.

Granted, I have no real dog in this fight as a hard science type, but
I don't like how I see the field developing, especially with the
multi-core challenge definitely admitting to traction with FP.

- Harold