I always considered this a silly holy war because I don't think there's as sharp a line between functional, OOP, and procedural as some of the partisans think.
You can write C and LISP that is very similar to object-oriented code, with a carefully defined data structure and associated functions that operate on that structure. You can write C and Java that is very similar to functional programming, with a strong emphasis on recursion, data moving up and down the call stack, list-like data structures, and function references that operate kinda like lambdas. You can write Java and LISP that is very similar to procedural code, with a hunk of data that's stored separate from the functions, and a collection of functions that each contain a sequence of instructions to manipulate that hunk of data. You even have languages that try to allow a combination of some or all of these approaches, like Python.
And they're all good for solving the kinds of problems they were designed to solve. So if you know how to coax the language you're using (either by choice or by demand) into using that approach, you can use the way of thinking best-suited for explaining what you're doing clearly.
-- The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday March 25 2022, @07:52PM
I always considered this a silly holy war because I don't think there's as sharp a line between functional, OOP, and procedural as some of the partisans think.
You can write C and LISP that is very similar to object-oriented code, with a carefully defined data structure and associated functions that operate on that structure.
You can write C and Java that is very similar to functional programming, with a strong emphasis on recursion, data moving up and down the call stack, list-like data structures, and function references that operate kinda like lambdas.
You can write Java and LISP that is very similar to procedural code, with a hunk of data that's stored separate from the functions, and a collection of functions that each contain a sequence of instructions to manipulate that hunk of data.
You even have languages that try to allow a combination of some or all of these approaches, like Python.
And they're all good for solving the kinds of problems they were designed to solve. So if you know how to coax the language you're using (either by choice or by demand) into using that approach, you can use the way of thinking best-suited for explaining what you're doing clearly.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.