[Haskell-cafe] Wikipedia on first-class object

[Jonathan Cast]

On 6 Jan 2008, at 1:31 PM, jerzy.karczmarczuk at info.unicaen.fr wrote:

> Derek Elkins writes:
>> Jonathan Cast wrote:
>>> I find the term `declarative' to be almost completely meaningless.
>> I was originally thinking of having the final sentence: "There are no
>> clear, accepted meanings for any of these terms."
>
> Clear, no.
> Accepted, yes.
> Let Jonathan Cast repeat that statement to people who organise  
> conferences
> on Declarative Programming, or those who assembled:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarative_programming
> http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/burks/foldoc/90/29.htm
> (or http://foldoc.org/foldoc.cgi?declarative+language)

To quote your last citation:

 > declarative language: Any relational language or functional language.

Yes, the term `declarative' means something in the sense that we can  
tell whether any given language is declarative or not, so I should  
have been more clear.  To wit, I do not believe the term  
`declarative' has any single referent, even in the sense that the  
term `functional' has any single referent.  I find the only  
similarity between Haskell and Prolog to be that neither is imperative.

> I can't see what is the purpose of all your argument...

Granted.

jcc