Hi Mike,
   Thanks for your thoughts.

I agree that functional languages are quite useful. But I think the
problem is, many of the underlying hardware architectures are von
Neumann based. von Neumann machines work best with imperatives
programs (languages).

I think building machine architectures which can support functional
paradigm is challenging ...

On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 11:05 PM, Michael Kay <mike@s...> wrote:
> There are no applications that NEED imperative programming (functional
> programming has provably the same computational power). Whether things are
> more EASILY done that way is in large measure a matter of your skills and
> experience. (I remember working with programmers from an older generation
> who claimed coding was easier if they used GOTO statements.) There are one
> or two things I still find easier in imperative languages - notably some
> graph-walking applications - but they are few and far between. Many problems
> that appear to be so complex that you need an imperative language turn out,
> on examination, to be complex only BECAUSE you are using an imperative
> language.
>
> Of your three examples, one of my clients builds complex workflow
> applications entirely in XSLT/XQuery and it's remarkable how the logic is
> simplified by doing it this way. One of the attractions is that a functional
> language like XSLT or LISP encourages you to think about program and data in
> a more unified way, which is really helpful when building a workflow engine.
> For example, it's natural to think about a set of rules written in an XML
> vocabulary being translated dynamically into an XSLT stylesheet.
>
> Game programming and GUI programming are a different question because your
> choice of language is heavily dictated by the data you are working with. XML
> languages are good at manipulating XML, they are not so good at manipulating
> images. But functional languages such as Haskell are certainly used for
> implementing "strategy" games such as chess.
>
> Michael Kay
> http://www.saxonica.com/



-- 
Regards,
Mukul Gandhi

_______________________________________________________________________

XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS
to support XML implementation and development. To minimize
spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.

[Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe@l...
subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe@l...
List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php