Re^3: How A Function Becomes Higher Order

[jdporter]

O.k., you're talking about extending the one function in situ, not the kind of extension that subclassing or aggregation gives.

And that's essentially my complaint about this technique: it's nearly impossible to build large, extensible frameworks with. In my experience, functional programming works great at small levels of granularity; for anything larger, OO is far more useful. (Of course, the FP purists will disagree, and I'm not saying they're wrong.)

[blazar]

In my experience, functional programming works great at small levels of granularity; for anything larger, OO is far more useful. (Of course, the FP purists will disagree, and I'm not saying they're wrong.)

Indeed there are languages that support both paradigms. Most notably in this context, Perl itself. However to support is one thing and to enforce is another one; I'm curious about Objective Caml. Whatever the language, I wonder if there's any project that uses extensively both OO and FP techniques...

[adrianh]

And that's essentially my complaint about this technique: it's nearly impossible to build large, extensible frameworks with. In my experience, functional programming works great at small levels of granularity; for anything larger, OO is far more useful. (Of course, the FP purists will disagree, and I'm not saying they're wrong.)

I certainly wouldn't describe myself as an FP purist, and I spend most of my time with OO languages these days, but I've found both FP and OO equally useful "in the large". Different techniques certainly, but both equally useful.