[Tutor] Functional Programming

[Michael]

On Friday 07 July 2006 00:39, Terry Carroll wrote:
> Neither of these is particularly directed to Python, though.

Also, much as I like python, it's not really suited to functional programming
approaches, given recursion isn't tail optimised, lambda is by comparison
crippled, some aspects of pythons approach to closures aren't as robust as
I'd like, mutablity of values, and things like currying aren't as simple as
they could be.

That said, functional programming is fun, and these days probably the best
introductions are either SML books or Haskell.

I also think that having an understanding of functional programming will 
generally improve someone's code, but I would suggest that learning the ideas 
in a language where functional programming is the norm rather the exception 
is a good idea. The come back to python, and learn to undo your recursive 
instincts!


Michael