On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 8:45 PM, Sam <lightai...@gmail.com> wrote: > I would like to learn and try out functional programming (FP). I love Python > and would like to use it to try FP. Some have advised me to use Haskell > instead because Python is not a good language for FP. I am sort of confused > at the moment. Is Python a dysfunctional programming language to apply FP? > Can the more experienced Python users advise?
Everything about FP that can be done in, say, Scheme, can be done in Python, with the exception of tail recursion (but that isn't important for "real" FP). But Scheme is old, and people keep thinking of new things and more interesting variations on the lambda calculus. Haskell is kind of the core of modern functional programming, and involves heavy use of concepts that do not exist or are visibly alien in Python. If you want to learn FP properly, you should learn Haskell. Otherwise you will likely be confused when you overhear functional programmers talking, whether it's about Hindley-Milner or sum types or eta conversion. -- Devin -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
