Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!ece-csc!mcnc!rti!sas!bts From: bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: Functional Programming Keywords: What is it? Message-ID: <628@sas.UUCP> Date: 22 Sep 88 23:21:44 GMT References: <180@kadsma.kadsm> Reply-To: bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) Organization: SAS Institute Inc, Cary NC Lines: 17 In article <180@kadsma.kadsm> brunjes@kadsma.UUCP (Roy Brunjes) writes: |I have seen several postings lately talking about functional programming and |how suitable Forth is for that. My question is, I hope, more simple. What |IS functional programming? Functional program is where you program without side effects. That is, whenever you call something, it only returns information and does not set global variables and so on. It is most commonly associated with LISP. In most languages, it is bloody awkward because returning multiple values is awkward or impossible. In FORTH it's easy--in fact, setting global variables is what's relatively awkward in FORTH. -- --Brian, __________________________________________________ the man from |Brian T. Schellenberger ...!mcnc!rti!sas!bts Babble-On |104 Willoughby Lane work: (919) 467-8000 x7783 ____________________________|Cary, NC 27513 home: (919) 469-9389