Re: Functional Programming in the Larger or FunctionalOriented Software Engineering

On 18 Mar 2007, at 20:46, [email protected] wrote:

>> 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.

You are making a lot of implicit assumptions here, and I have the  
impression that a lot of OOP fans make such assumptions without being  
aware of them, and of course without being aware what the potentially  
far-reaching consequences of such assumptions are.

The most important implicit assumption here, for example, is that  
there exists a reality independent of our perception that can be  
observed in the first place. This may seem obviously true, but it is  
very hard to argue that this is actually the case. As an extreme  
counter position, see for example constructivism - http:// 
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_epistemology -, social  
construction - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_construction -, or  
social constructionism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Social_constructionism -. See also the excellent book "The social  
construction of what?" by Ian Hacking - http://www.amazon.com/Social- 
Construction-What-Ian-Hacking/dp/0674004124

I am convinced that programming is much closer to a constructivist  
activity than to an attempt to describe reality. See also http:// 
www.dreamsongs.com/ArtOfLisp.html - in my opinion Richard Gabriel's  
best essay so far...

Pascal

-- 
Pascal Costanza, mailto:[email protected], http://p-cos.net
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Programming Technology Lab
Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussel, Belgium