> Ever wonder why we need operating systems? They’re elaborate workarounds for the functional programming concept.
> An OS converts long-running synchronous flows of function-calling-function behavior into state machines by silently saving state somewhere deep in the system (process descriptors, stack frames, registers).
Half of the article is common sense, relatable sentiment (e.g., that FP as abstraction is really mismatched with how CPUs work).
And then there are head scratchers like the quoted bit.
Lego blocks are how I like to think about software components... They may not be the perfect shape you need but you can iterate fast. In fact my favorite software development model is just to iterate on your lego blocks until the app you need is some trivial combination of your blocks.
What did I just read?
> Ever wonder why we need operating systems? They’re elaborate workarounds for the functional programming concept.
> An OS converts long-running synchronous flows of function-calling-function behavior into state machines by silently saving state somewhere deep in the system (process descriptors, stack frames, registers).
Half of the article is common sense, relatable sentiment (e.g., that FP as abstraction is really mismatched with how CPUs work).
And then there are head scratchers like the quoted bit.
Isn't the suggested 'path forward' basically a description of Elixir/Erlang BEAM?
>”We don’t need smarter type systems, we need…”
Erlang, you just described Erlang.
Lego blocks are how I like to think about software components... They may not be the perfect shape you need but you can iterate fast. In fact my favorite software development model is just to iterate on your lego blocks until the app you need is some trivial combination of your blocks.
Erlang does exactly what the author wants.
Isn't this more about miss-applying functional programming? Not that these things aren't possible with functional programming.