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From: diamond@jit345.swstokyo.dec.com (Norman Diamond)
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.lang.functional
Subject: Re: Global program state.
Message-ID: <1991Jan7.052650.23485@jituha.enet.dec.com>
Date: 7 Jan 91 05:26:50 GMT
References: <27823155.211e@petunia.CalPoly.EDU>
Sender: news@jituha.enet.dec.com (USENET News System)
Reply-To: diamond@jit345.enet.dec.com (Norman Diamond)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Japan , Tokyo
Lines: 17

In article <27823155.211e@petunia.CalPoly.EDU> jdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck) writes:

>Is the issue of program state really the crux of the issue of program
>tractability and of control of complexity in software engineering?

It is a crux, not the only one.

>It seems to me that the ability to localize program state is an essential
>requirement, but I don't see why it should be necessary to eliminate it
>altogether, as in functional programming.

Functional programming has its place too.  Yes it makes proofs easier and
programming harder, and syntactic constructs have not been developed well
enough to bridge these issues.
--
Norman Diamond       diamond@tkov50.enet.dec.com
If this were the company's opinion, I wouldn't be allowed to post it.