[MUD-Dev] [Tech] Functional languages

[ceo]

Brian Hook wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Sep 2003 10:26:16 +0100, ceo wrote:
>> Brian Hook wrote:

>> - functional languages are not inherently well-suited to
>> outputting partial results, or having side-effects.

> You could use that argument to disallow functional languages for
> just about anything.  Who would use Lisp for a text editor?!  Or
> OCaml for a file directory synchronization tool?  Yet they do.

Indeed :). I was only attempting to offer some possible
explanations. I agree they aren't particularly logical - but they
may well be enough to put people off.

> I mean, I've seen MUD servers written in Perl and Visual Basic.
> But not Scheme?  Weird.

Just a guess, but I suspect that has more to do with the Universal
Hammer syndrome - vast numbers of people learn those two languages
in particular without really thinking about it (bad way to put
it. Um, What I mean is: if you learn C++ it's normally a reasonably
informed decision - even if only "because I know games are written
in C++" or similar. If you learn VB or Perl it's normally just
because it's there, and there's a tutorial, or your webhost listed
it at the top of their feature list when you bought a website).

It's one of the side effects of perl's rise to fame - it became a
default language for people to learn, without them knowing why. So
you see people write things they want to write, but they only have
the one language (hammer), so they have a go with that. Fortunately
most things a reasonably casual programmer wants to do are pretty
doable in both languages (assuming we give each the benefit of the
doubt here...). If someone wants to start writing 3D engines, they
typically gain a lot more deep knowledge, and end up making a much
more informed decision about what to use (and end up, perhaps, with
C++).

Shrug. Pure conjecture :). Sorry to offer only vague,
toy-psychological answers to your rather more sensible questions...

Adam M
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev