Re: What's the big deal?

In my "Programming Languages" class (ProgLang), when the professor asked for an example of a functional language, some said "Perl" (it wasn't me) and she said no. This is the same instructor that taught Perl a couple years ago, and I corrected. I should show her map() and grep() and other Lisp-like constructs. Perl doesn't really belong to any one camp.

She also said Perl was interpreted, and not compiled. Although she did kind of admit it was a hybrid. But the sounded very strongly like she believed it was strictly interpreted.

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Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

Comment on Re: What's the big deal?

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Re: Re: What's the big deal? by demerphq (Chancellor) on Sep 01, 2001 at 06:18 UTC
Hey japhy. Its too bad you didnt bring up closures. Thats about the best example I can think of in perl. Grep and map, while very cool and useful are basically just for loops so to me they dont count that much (even though the idea has a functional origin) She also said Perl was interpreted, and not compiled. Yes the old interpreted versus compiled debate. You really could have nailed her by pointing out what I said earlier "all digital computer are technically Automated Interpreted Formal Systems" which mean no matter how you look at it ultimately the code gets interpreted. I kinda hate that debate actually, cause so often the lines get blurred. For instance if a c program has a regex engine then some part of the c programs code gets compiled then interpreted... Nightmare. add to the fact that languages that have some form of interpretation are usually so much more fun to program... :-) Yves	[reply]
Re: Re: What's the big deal? by hding (Chaplain) on Sep 01, 2001 at 03:20 UTC
It's somewhat a matter of degree. Ask a C programmer if Lisp is a functional language and he'll probably say "yes" (if he knows what a functional language is :-) Ask a hardcore Haskell programmer, and you might well get the answer "no". One might think of Perl similarly.	[reply]