[Haskell] What makes a functional language functional?
C.M.Brown
cmb21 at kent.ac.uk
Thu Aug 9 05:30:15 EDT 2007
Hi,
Is lazy evaluation necessary for a functional language to remain
functional?
The reason I ask is that because it violates beta-reduction, and also
referential transparency (I think). In haskell, we can transform:
g x + f x
into:
f x + g x
as both f and g do not change the parameter x.
If g always evaluates to a normal form (in both a lazy and a strict world)
g x = x
but f is defined thus:
f x = (\y -> if x /= 0 then x else y/x)
And we apply f to 0 (1/0) then f becomes _|_
therefore:
0 + _|_ /= _|_ + 0
Or, does this just become:
_|_ = _|_ ?
Or, am I missing something totally obvious?
Regards,
Chris.
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