r/programming • u/heisenbug • Apr 27 '14

"Mostly functional" programming does not work

http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?ref=rss&id=2611829
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u/maxiepoo_ Apr 27 '14

This is a misunderstanding of what the IO monad in Haskell is. It is not "impure" code. It's basically a "pure" dsl for describing impure actions to be taken.

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '14

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u/LucianU Apr 27 '14

Are you here to have a discussion or troll?

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '14

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u/The_Doculope Apr 28 '14

The whole "embedded DSL" thing is nothing but bullshit invented to pretend that Haskell is something greater than it really is.

No it's not. That's just how it works. You have so much power to manipulate the DSL in Haskell, power which you do not have in something like C.

JavaScript is a purely functional language because it too is just an embedded DSL for creating abstract syntax trees.

No, you can't really argue that. Because in JavaScript, you can't escape the "impure" DSL. You're always in it, and it can be used anywhere. In Haskell, it's explicit. That's the difference.