Re: [Caml-list] (Mostly) Functional Design?

[Alex Baretta <alex@barettadeit.com>]

alphablock wrote:
> May be there are many less FP solutions than OOP solutions just because
> there are many less FP problems than OOP problems.
> 
> Or may be i am plain naive, who knows...
> 
> - damien

I would not say so. It is just the problems tend to admit a fairly
simple--although generally not trivial solution. This does not justify a
large scale attempt to catalog all FP "design patterns" in a single
book. Let me try to list a few I can readily think of.

* Indefinite recursion through tail call optimization
* Systematic elimination of explicit or implicit (recursive) cycles
whenever an iterator is available. If an iterator is not available for a
given data structure, it is often advisable to define one.
* Order preservation of sequential data structures such as lists through
 the use of an even number of order reversing tail-recursive algorithms.
* Late-binding of recursive calls
* Multi-stage programming through partial evaluation
...

These ideas are more general coding strategies requiring a specific
design from the programmer, rather than parametrized design patterns
abstracting from the (absence of) cognitive abilities of the programmer.

Alex


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