2009/10/1 Andrew Coppin
John Dorsey wrote:
Well, try this: Go ask a random person how you add up a list of numbers. Most of them will say something about adding the first two together, adding the third to that total, and so forth. In other words, the step by step instructions.
You word the (hypothetical) question with a bias toward imperative thinking. You're asking "How do you do this action?"
Why isn't the question "What is the sum of a list of numbers?", which is biased toward the declarative?
Sure. But what is a computer program? It's a *list of instructions* that tells a computer *how to do something*. And yet, the Haskell definition of sum looks more like a definition of what a sum is rather than an actual, usable procedure for *computing* that sum. (Of course, we know that it /is/ in fact executable... it just doesn't look it at first sight.)
Well, we are not writing computer programs directly, even in C, that's what compilers are for. That's why I find arguments about the sequential essence of computer programs to be weak.
Whatever; I'm leaning more and more towards the concept that FP is only hard for people who already learned some other way...
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