[Haskell-cafe] Imperative vs. declarative (was: Bool is not...safe?!)

[Sergiu Ivanov]

Hi Paul,

1. What exactly is the difference between "what to do?" and "how to do
   it?" for you?  For example: in Prolog, we write _how to_ build a
   relation between some variables.

2. Of course, function purity is an abstraction.  Now imagine a scale of
   impurity; a Haskell pure function is purer than a typical Bash
   function.

I'm genuinely interested in your reasoning, but I will join the small
chorus of people asking you for definitions.  Perhaps, you could write
up your ideas in a blog post somewhere that we can then discuss?

-
Sergiu


Thus quoth  PY  on Mon Jul 09 2018 at 08:09 (+0200):
> Hello, Olaf!
>
> 08.07.2018 23:56, Olaf Klinke wrote:
>> Your own example of factorial is very much declarative in the above sense, because it only declares what the factorial function is, in terms of the relationship between factorial(n) and factorial(n-1). Of course the functional programmer must have a mental model of the runtime's behaviour in mind. (Recursively calling the function, in this case.) But what happens on the lower, imperative level when computing factorial(n) is not relevant for the definition of the function.
> My point was that in Haskell we define how to calculate result from
> arguments, exactly as in C# and with the same pattern-matching. But in
> Prolog I coded relation, so Prolog know how to calculate not only
> factorial but also argument from the result like we have 2 different
> evaluation coded in Prolog. Currently it's obvious: there are different
> classification. I showed only what I myself studied as a student :)
> Another interesting note is: are XML, HTML, CSS declarative language?
> When I was student they were called formats and not languages. Because
> Haskell execution/evaluation is based on lambda calculus, classical
> Prolog on formal logic on 1st order predicates, but on what calculation
> model are based XML? There are a lot of XML or CSS parsers on any
> language :) So, they don't subscribe evaluation model but only data.
> But another contra-example: XML -> DocBook -> Postscript. Is it format
> or language? :) I think currently there are a lot of hybrid-languages:
> OOP+FP (F#, C#, Ocaml, CL...), FP+PL (Mercury, Curry...). Also there are
> a lot of PL libraries, for example: yieldProlog for Python :) So, there
> are a lot of cases when it's difficult to make right classification. So,
> I understand that classification becomes more unclear and difficult,
> that's true. Like that may be different way to classify them.
> Olaf, but I have another question. You was talking about commutative
> monads. I check it, something like this:
>
> |doa <-ma b <-mb f a b is equal to: ||dob <-mb a <-ma f a b|
>
> && and || are commutative sure. But question is: why in this case in C/C++, Bash (what else) order has matter, even more: order is fixed in standard.
>
> `e1 && e2` is equals to `if e1 then e2`. And there is a lot of code
> which relies on this. Why they implements boolean operations in such
> way? Order has not matter for +, -, *, etc in the same languages (they
> are commutative). Why so many languages have not commutative bool
> operations? When i think about it, i find next example: Haskell function
> is pure, but is it really true? :) In practical world we can have 2
> functions one like `f a b = a + b`. And another `g` may be some wavelet
> transformation or calculation of some super big fractal. No side effects
> (effects in external world), but when you evaluate `f` - you can not see
> effect. But when you calculate `g` - you can even touch the effect on
> CPU case with fingers (it will be hot!) :-) So, there is difference to
> write `f && g` or `g && f`. If some code relies on order of execution
> and use `&&` instead of `if` - it has matter. May be bool operations
> were not implemented commutative in those languages because it allows to
> write "multi-ifs" (a & b & c & d ...) in short circuit way? I never
> though about this early :) I remember that there were orelse and
> andalso in Basic and Ocaml... So, seems there is such tradition in CS:
> to have mandatory non-commutative and's/or's and optionally commutative
> and's/or's ?
>
> ===
> Best regards, Paul
> ||
> _______________________________________________
> Haskell-Cafe mailing list
> To (un)subscribe, modify options or view archives go to:
> http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
> Only members subscribed via the mailman list are allowed to post.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 487 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/attachments/20180709/dab27238/attachment-0001.sig>