[Haskell-cafe] What are side effects in Haskell?

[Cristiano Paris]

On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 8:53 PM, Conal Elliott <conal at conal.net> wrote:
>
> I have some speculations:
>
> * In pure "OO" programming, everything is an object, so in pure "functional"
> programming, one might assume everything is a function.  I find the term
> "value-oriented programming" a more accurate label than "functional
> programming".

First, I've to say that I'm not a language theorist in any way. That
said, I think yours is indeed a good point, yet programs in Haskell
are *strictly* expressed in terms of function applications, in
contrast to other languages where programs are made up *mostly* of
function invocations and other effectful statements, like assignments
and IO.

The fact that functions are values like any others is, at the same
time, the beauty and the power of the functional paradigm.

Cristiano