Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!inmos!mph
From: mph@lion.inmos.co.uk (Mike Harrison)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: comp.lang.functional
Message-ID: <4165@ganymede.inmos.co.uk>
Date: 22 Feb 90 17:13:01 GMT
References: <1619@husc6.harvard.edu> <1797@skye.ed.ac.uk> <5144@brazos.Rice.edu>
Sender: news@inmos.co.uk
Reply-To: mph@inmos.co.uk (Mike Harrison)
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In article <5144@brazos.Rice.edu> dorai@helma.rice.edu (Dorai Sitaram) writes:
>In article <1797@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>>In article <1619@husc6.harvard.edu> carlton@husc4.harvard.edu (david carlton) writes:
>>>
>>>What do people think about creating a comp.lang.functional news groups, for
>>>the discussion of functional programming languages? 

>I'm tentatively in favor too; however, "functional" is about the most
>ambivalent, and consequently useless, term in programming languages.

I take the view that a functional language is one which uses the Lambda 
Calculus as its underlying semantic model, the syntax, type system and 
pragmatics are what vary between the languages.
I think that such languages should form the central thread of discussion in 
this proposed news group.

I am aware that some languages (eg. ML) which are fundamentally 'functional'
in nature may have some imperative features, I don't think they should be 
excluded from the group on those grounds alone.
However, there exist many other groups based on imperative programming in its 
many flavours, so I feel that comp.lang.functional should be dedicated primarily
to the pure and functional features of languages.

Mike,

Michael P. Harrison - Software Group - Inmos Ltd. UK.
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