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0 pointsCJefferson11y ago0 comments

That day will come, for many of us, when a large AAA game, web browser, or usable OS is written in a FP language.

And I realise that is an unfair target, but there is very little user facing FP software. The only one I can think of I have used is xmonad, which is both hard to use and fairly buggy

0 comments

pjmlp11y ago

You mean like Crash Bandicoot, Abuse, Jak and Daxter?

Or maybe Genera.

Or maybe Remote Agent software used by Nasa Deep Space 1?

Or eventually the train control systems running on software from Siscog?

alayne11y ago

You can do functional programming in Lisp, but even the wiki page for GOAL says "GOAL encourages an imperative programming style". Not to mention most Lisp data structures being mutable if we're talking purely functional.

pjmlp11y ago

I have a problem with modern notions of purely functional.

My first functional programming language was Caml Light, back in 1996. Followed by Prolog and eventually Lisp.

All alongside traditional lambda calculus and logic proofs, with ocasional references to a programming language called Mirada.

So for me, Lisp is functional programming and I don't buy into this modern notion that only Haskell is the poster child of FP.

1 more reply

MichaelGG11y ago

Probably more like when Mozilla ships a browser written in Rust. Even though Rust handles low-level so well, it heavily uses FP concepts.

Meanwhile, this is good news for people creating startups or otherwise being competitive. Having advanced programming languages where your competition is mired down having to churn out 10x more code, is certainly a benefit. Although not every (many?) business really comes down to technical ability.

pjmlp11y ago

> Probably more like when Mozilla ships a browser written in Rust.

Actually I would rather see this happening, than the continuous effort on Firefox OS.

saryant11y ago

> You mean like Crash Bandicoot, Abuse, Jak and Daxter?

Huh, TIL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Oriented_Assembly_Lisp

CJeffersonOP11y ago

While Crash Bandicoot used LISP (which I wouldn't call FP, although definitions vary), it was only for a small part of the code (the AI), nowhere near all the game was written in lisp.

Someone11y ago

Not there at all (slower than the Pascal equivalent, limited to fairly simple games, and uses some C), but nevertheless interesting is http://cleangl.sourceforge.net/thesis/CGL.pdf, which describes a game library in Concurrent Clean.

(reading http://clean.cs.ru.nl and looking at the archives of the mailing list may give the impression the project died at the end of 2011, but http://clean.cs.ru.nl/Download_Clean has binaries from November 2014)

codygman11y ago

Xmonad is buggy? I've been using it for 4 years and never had a problem. I actually also use it on multiple displays.

codygman11y ago

Since I use Xmonad as my window manager, I'm rather invested in you elaborating on Xmonad being "fairly buggy". Should I worry about my data?

CJeffersonOP11y ago

I found that several applications would cause it to go crazy (lock up), including many Java applications and open office. Further, if you started adding many extensions, they would cause crashes (I'm sure it's because they were badly written, but I thought the whole point of haskell was no crashes).

So, if you find nowadays Java apps and openoffice work fine (or, you don't use them), and you are careful about which extensions you add, then you will probably be fine.

codygman11y ago

Oh! I know what you are talking about and remember the issue. You had/have to add `setWMName "LG3D"' to the configuration since versions older than Java 7 don't include Xmonad on their hardcoded list of suppported window managers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem like that one was Xmonad's fault.

Interesting, to be honest I don't really use any extensions. I do use Java apps and openoffice these days and they work fine.

Thanks for your response! I'll have to try adding some extensions and see what happens.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

pjmlp11y ago

You mean like Crash Bandicoot, Abuse, Jak and Daxter?

Or maybe Genera.

Or maybe Remote Agent software used by Nasa Deep Space 1?

Or eventually the train control systems running on software from Siscog?

alayne11y ago

pjmlp11y ago

I have a problem with modern notions of purely functional.

My first functional programming language was Caml Light, back in 1996. Followed by Prolog and eventually Lisp.

All alongside traditional lambda calculus and logic proofs, with ocasional references to a programming language called Mirada.

So for me, Lisp is functional programming and I don't buy into this modern notion that only Haskell is the poster child of FP.

1 more reply

MichaelGG11y ago

Probably more like when Mozilla ships a browser written in Rust. Even though Rust handles low-level so well, it heavily uses FP concepts.

pjmlp11y ago

> Probably more like when Mozilla ships a browser written in Rust.

Actually I would rather see this happening, than the continuous effort on Firefox OS.

saryant11y ago

> You mean like Crash Bandicoot, Abuse, Jak and Daxter?

Huh, TIL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Oriented_Assembly_Lisp

CJeffersonOP11y ago

While Crash Bandicoot used LISP (which I wouldn't call FP, although definitions vary), it was only for a small part of the code (the AI), nowhere near all the game was written in lisp.

Someone11y ago

codygman11y ago

Xmonad is buggy? I've been using it for 4 years and never had a problem. I actually also use it on multiple displays.

codygman11y ago

Since I use Xmonad as my window manager, I'm rather invested in you elaborating on Xmonad being "fairly buggy". Should I worry about my data?

CJeffersonOP11y ago

So, if you find nowadays Java apps and openoffice work fine (or, you don't use them), and you are careful about which extensions you add, then you will probably be fine.

codygman11y ago

Interesting, to be honest I don't really use any extensions. I do use Java apps and openoffice these days and they work fine.

Thanks for your response! I'll have to try adding some extensions and see what happens.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse