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Ask Slashdot: Do You Like Functional Programming? (slashdot.org) 418

An anonymous reader writes: Functional programming seems to be all the rage these days. Efforts are being made to highlight its use in Java, JavaScript, C# and elsewhere. Lots of claims are being made about it's virtues that seem relatively easy to prove or disprove such as "Its use will reduce your debugging time." Or "It will clarify your code." My co-workers are resorting to arm-wrestling matches over this style choice. Half of my co-workers have drunk the Kool-Aid and are evangelizing its benefits. The other half are unconvinced of its virtues over Object Oriented Design patterns, etc.

What is your take on functional programming and related technologies (i.e. lambdas and streams)? Is it our salvation? Is it merely another useful design pattern? Or is it a technological dead-end?

Python creator Guido van Rossum has said most programmers aren't used to functional languages, and when he answered Slashdot reader questions in 2013 said the only functional language he knew much about was Haskell, and "any language less popular than Haskell surely has very little practical value." He even added "I also don't think that the current crop of functional languages is ready for mainstream."

Leave your own opinions in the comments. Do you like functional programming?

Comment I started off with C (Score 2) 315

It's my most familiar language, back from when I was learning it on the schoolbus by reading K&R. I would still never choose C over a carefully-selected subset of C++ for a new project. There is just no advantage to keeping things more primitive except when it comes to very specific environments, like traditional Unix kernels. I think templates are very useful in limited doses and far superior than macros, inheritance is somewhat useful to almost any kind of CS problem, and the STL itself is a huge boon to software reliability and interoperability.

Of course, I also have no qualms with Java, so....

Comment Re:I won't be back (Score 1) 156

The magic's gone since they started seriously dumbing down the game at the end of TBC.... Have only done a trial period or two since then, totally unimpressed. Final Fantasy XIV is it now, unless that goes in a direction that is clearly upsetting to me. I am pretty damn nostalgic for old WoW memories, though. You can never go back.

Comment Re:OMG enough (Score 1) 360

Revision control systems are not magic; if you edit the repository, you've changed the data. If they're open source like CVS then there's not a hint of obstacle in writing a program to modify the revision control repository, including modifying any metadata like checksums.

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