[Haskell-beginners] single responsibility principle vs functional
programming
Stephen Blackheath [to Haskell-Beginners]
mutilating.cauliflowers.stephen at blacksapphire.com
Wed Jan 27 14:43:32 EST 2010
Joe,
IMHO:
Classes in OOP have several purposes, one of which is to manage the
mutation of state so as to put a lid on the complexity that could
result. The inside of an OOP class is usually a C program, and the
outside is (ideally) a semi-functional program with interfaces that are
simple at the level of abstraction where they operate. The single
responsibility principle exists to stop the C programs getting big and
messy, and to help the programmer to build neat layers of abstraction on
top of each other by having more abstract classes constructed out of
less abstract ones.
Functional programming essentially takes the C part away and makes the
whole program into a layering of abstractions, even at the lowest level.
An FP function more-or-less maps to an OOP class, and the reason why it
can be a much lighter-weight structure is because the need to manage
mutation has been removed. I think the same principle applies, though -
an FP function should have only one responsibility.
Perhaps in FP the need for this principle to be explicitly stated and
carefully observed is not so great, though. If an FP function does two
things and can be split up, it's not such a big deal, because
re-factoring is easy in an FP language. By comparison in OOP, splitting
a big messy class up is a lot of work with a great risk of breakage.
This amplifies the importance of applying the single responsibility
principle before you start writing the class.
Steve
Joe Van Dyk wrote:
> So I'm still pretty new to functional programming.
>
> In OOP, you have the concept of each class having a
> single-responsibility (or reason for changing). See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_responsibility_principle
>
> I'm having problems seeing how that concept maps to functional
> programming. Perhaps it doesn't?
>
More information about the Beginners
mailing list