Re: Functional Programming in the Larger or FunctionalOriented Software Engineering

> At 05:34 PM 3/18/2007 +0100, Pascal Costanza wrote:
> - Functional programming seems to require more abstract thinking than
> object-oriented programming. Objects seem to be more tangible than
> functions. The idea of presumably better being able to model the "real
> world" is related, because I guess a simplified physicality of the "real
> world" is implicitly assumed here. (I don't understand what "modeling the
> real world" is actually supposed to mean. I don't think this idea makes
> any sense. But that's a different topic... ;)


Modeling the real world is supposed to mean something like what pretty
much all of science does, or what pure human perception does for that
matter. Objects work well as a programming practice probably mostly
because they map well to natural language. For instance, there are some
NLP tools that would generate some class declarations based on a
paragraph, in plain readable english, describing "a real world situation".
I haven't seen anything of the sort with functional programs. Not sure in
what sense functional programs are "more abstract" than OO programs, but
OO abstractions seem to be already available in one's head so working with
them requires less effort.