Hacker News Reader

Well, if you're really programming in a function way, then you're not using side effects (or at least, the side effects are constrained). That means things are local, and you can safely compose functions without causing the behavior of other parts of the program to change.

View on HN

Spoken like a true academic.

Or, you know, a software engineer. Good software engineers, after all, value things like low coupling; composability is like a stronger version of low coupling. (That is, composable things are not tightly coupled but decoupled things are not necessarily composable.)

Good software engineers certainly value low couplings. Unless it is a coupling with some code written in an obscure language with extreme (and masochistic) approach and with no common sense.

I'm not at all sure what your point is. There's nothing controversial about the benefits of referential transparency and immutable state, for modularity, composition and simplicity. What is obscure to you? It won't be to everyone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com