Re: if vs. when vs. and: style question

[Rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com>]

On Saturday, March 28, 2015 at 4:32:46 AM UTC+5:30, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> Emanuel Berg  writes:
> 
> > Hey... Why don't you Unicode and FP lovers do a new
> > editor called "Uhacs" (for Unicode, Haskell, and
> > Emacs) - the best thing with this editor is the
> > development time, which is actually zero. Because when
> > you start working on it, the result is a side-effect,
> > which is intolerable by definition, so you have to
> > stop :) Wait... oups, I did it again! But that joke
> > wasn't rude, was it? Rather, it is funny because it is
> > true :)
> 
> Well, yes and no.
> 
> That is, you can make the joke about purely functional systems running
> on Von Neuman archiectures, where anything is done only with side
> effects.

"Functional" has been a rather moving target in the last 50 years:

Recently came across this interview of John McCarthy
http://www.infoq.com/interviews/Steele-Interviews-John-McCarthy

In the 1st question he says he learnt functional programming from Backus'
Fortran. Even to someone who is a bit of an old-timer like myself, this view 
is amazing.  Younger kids dont even get how shocking is being said here:
When I mentioned this on the Haskell list someone (only) connected it with
Backus' Turing award lecture.

Whereas if one reads the Turing award lecture, clearly Backus is doing penitence
for the 'sin' of inventing Fortran, 20 years after the invention.

And yet one needs to admit that in 1957 Fortran was a functional language --
the very name carries that intention.
By 1977 that stand needed a very public withdrawal.

And so in summary:
In 1957 For(mula Tran(slator) was the (one and only) functional language
1960 Lisp
60s Lisp+APL
70s ML, Also 'theoretical languages' like ISWIM
80s Lazy languages FPLs like SASL, KRC, Miranda start appearing
While the landmark SICP is from 80s, we also have the beginning rumbles saying
Lisp has retarded the progress of functional programming and CS education
by 10 years [David Turner, Phil Wadler]
[Interestingly it appears that in the late 80s McCarthy said Lisp was not
functional]
90s Haskell
This century: Some unexpected resurgence of Lisp as functional -- CLojure

I am ready to bet that 20 years from now Haskell wont be regarded as a
properly functional language.

Beginning rumbles: Bob Harper's Haskell is exceptionally unsafe

[Seems to be removed, heres an archive version
https://web.archive.org/web/20150102135555/https://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/haskell-is-exceptionally-unsafe/
]