xsl-list
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [xsl] Functional Programming, "no side effects" and so on...

2007-02-16 13:45:44
On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 13:08:36 -0700, Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:

XSLT is a functional language and this is a big topic. This is how I
explain the lack of responses to the OP -- a good reply could be to
write a book on this topic.

That would make for a *GREAT* book! Of course, as luck would have it, I just so happen to know a few folks who could help make that happen. Feel free to let me know when you want me to do just that ;) :D


The best explanation of FXSL is in the two papers presented at the
Extreme Markup Languages Conference (2003, 2006) -- especially the
latter, which covers FXSL 2 (for XSLT 2.0):
http://www.idealliance.org/papers/extreme/proceedings/xslfo-pdf/2006/Novatchev01/EML2006Novatchev01.pdf

Agreed.  The above paper *ROCKS*! :D

  It's a pity that most traditional programming is based on imperative
languages, which severely undermines the ability of the regular
programmer to broadly understand a problem, to analyze it
independently from any implementation choices and in particular to
think outside of the limited imperative paradigm.

Most definitely agree. It's a pity for sure. I'm sure you've already seen this, Dimitre, but for anyone who has not: An interesting video from four of the primary language architects at MSFT (Herb Sutter, Erik Meijer, Brian Beckman, and Anders Hejlsberg) was recently posted to Channel9(_at_)MSDN
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=273697

This very same topic is covered in great extent, showcasing the obvious fact that there is definitely quite a bit of momentum (for those familar with LINQ and its predecessors X# and COmega, it's obvious this is exactly where things are headed), as well as "one-step-at-a-time" preparations taking place to continue moving towards a foundation in which functional programming on the .NET platform reigns supreme.

Dependent upon your platform of choice, F# is something I would spend some time getting to know as well > http://research.microsoft.com/fsharp/fsharp.aspx < A good portion of the Functional-like features of the C# 3.0 compiler (and if not mistaken, some of the features of C# 2.0 compiler as well) come directly from this project. To put it gently, Don Syme's (the creator of F# -- based out of MSFT's UK research facility) is *THE MAN*! > http://blogs.msdn.com/dsyme/ < is where you can find his blog.

--
/M:D

M. David Peterson
http://mdavid.name | http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2354

--~------------------------------------------------------------------
XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
To unsubscribe, go to: http://lists.mulberrytech.com/xsl-list/
or e-mail: <mailto:xsl-list-unsubscribe(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com>
--~--