Functional Programming in the Real World (2003) | Hacker News Reader

Functional Programming in the Real World (2003)

homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk

24 pointsjcr11 comments

Jet.com did their big launch this week. They use F# http://fsharpshow.com/3-jet-revolutionizing-ecommerce-using-...

According to the podcast, they started out with two solutions. One in C# and the other in F#, and F# won out in the end.

Here's some info on the company: http://recode.net/2015/07/21/jet-com-will-launch-with-amazon...

This page is substantially unchanged since 2004.[1] There are a lot of technologies missing from that list!

But that's the cool part -- when you think of how many modern languages and packages could be on that list, it really drives home how much FP is eating the world.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20040604130605/http://homepages....

In fact, 2003: https://web.archive.org/web/20031025102825/http://homepages..... We'll add the year to the title—thanks.

Wow, I totally missed the age of this page since I was also reading his main home page which is maintained:

http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/

Would it be worthwhile to change the link?

I don't think so. It's fine with the date added.

"Eating the world"? Methinks a little bit of exaggeration/echo chamber effect at play, here.

http://langpop.com/

Coldfusion, of all things, ranks ahead of the first pure functional language on that list (Haskell). Scala, the next highest impure but strongly functional language, ranks behind Visual Basic and Delphi.

Or, from another (more recently updated) source:

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....

Note, not a single functional language in the top 20. Haskell ranks in at #44. Scala, #30.

Don't let the Hacker News bubble fool you: FP is still extremely niche. At best, I'd claim we're seeing an increase traditional imperative languages that make it possible to utilize functional idioms, and mixed environments where you can combine functional and imperative code (think Java/Clojure or C#/F#) while taking advantage of existing software ecosystems. But in that case, it's more about sprinkling in functional approaches here and there, rather than completely drinking the kool-aid.

Tiobe is pretty horrible, checkout the redmonk rankings: http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2015/07/01/language-rankings-6-15...

Which places Haskell and Scala behind Perl, R, and Shell, at position 14 and 15, respectively.

And PHP at #3... shudder

That said, I don't see why I should believe RedMonk any more than any other ranking. Heck, any ranking that places C++ behind Python, or C behind Ruby, I don't believe for a damn second.

I know it's likely a simple user error, but

"Quite a few libraries exist for various languages, many of which include some impressive real-world applications. Have a look at: "

Haskell libraries: https://www.haskell.org/libraries

"Not Found", the irony ;-)

It's an academic webpage so by definition at least a decade since last updated.

Yes, all in good fun.

Wadler likely has better things to do than fixing stale links on his site; just found it amusing regardless.

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