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posted: 25 Aug 2009
I'm not one to go jumping on programming band wagons, I've not downloaded Python or Ruby but since doing some private study using the Berkeley University webcasts on Computer Science webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=2008-D-26263 I've started to think more about functional programming and wanting to know more. Now, functional programming is not something that makes the most sense to me, particularly as far as syntax. But as I get more into understanding it, it seems to make a lot of sense.
Indeed, while I am still fumbling around at the prompt, trying to make my functions work, I find myself looking back at more imperative code thinking that it's very ugly and verbose. The idea that in order to iterate over an array I need to create a loop with a index variable, define its bounds and then access each element and do it every time, does seem somewhat bizarre once you've seen the functional programming approach.
The language I am using at present to investigate and discover functional programming is Clojure clojure.org/, built atop the JVM and therefore with direct access to the power and multi-platform abilities of Java, but with the terse syntax of a Lisp-like language. I'll keep you posted on how I get on, once I figure out an application that I can build with it..!
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