Of what use is 'lambda'???

[James Felix Black]

> > > I have a question.  What is the difference between functional
> > > programming and procedural programming?  I know I should know
> > > this, but...
> > 
> > To start with, in functional programming everything returns a value.
> 
> That's true in C and Inform, but I think both are traditionally
> regarded as procedural.  Is the difference that the returned 
> value is always significant?  Or is there more?

In a functional language, unlike C or Python, there are no side
effects; all functions, when called with the same arguments, are
guaranteed to produce identical results.  In addition, functional
languages are referentially transparent.

Programs written in functional languages are a set of functions whose
return value is the output of the program. 

HTH,
(jfb)

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