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296 points gyre007 | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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_han ◴[] No.21281004[source]
The top comment on YouTube raises a valid point:

> I've programmed both functional and non-functional (not necessarily OO) programming languages for ~2 decades now. This misses the point. Even if functional programming helps you reason about ADTs and data flow, monads, etc, it has the opposite effect for helping you reason about what the machine is doing. You have no control over execution, memory layout, garbage collection, you name it. FP will always occupy a niche because of where it sits in the abstraction hierarchy. I'm a real time graphics programmer and if I can't mentally map (in rough terms, specific if necessary) what assembly my code is going to generate, the language is a non-starter. This is true for any company at scale. FP can be used at the fringe or the edge, but the core part demands efficiency.

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1. 6gvONxR4sf7o ◴[] No.21283351[source]
Just wait until this guy has to use something like SQL or Spark. They will always occupy a niche for exactly these reasons. Turns out it's a pretty big niche though. So big in fact, that maybe we shouldn't call it a niche.

Python's ecosystem is built on this premise. Let some other language (C) do the fast stuff and leverage that for your applications. It's not a niche language, even though you don't have direct control over things like memory management and GC.

Perhaps the commenter's role of real time graphics programming is actually the niche.

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2. dsego ◴[] No.21286179[source]
re python and scripting, afaik used to be known as "glue languages". not sure how true it is anymore.