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296 points gyre007 | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.457s | 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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blain_the_train ◴[] No.21282026[source]
Are you suggesting that oop allows programmers to understand the assembly output?

Did you watch the video? The most popular language is JavaScript, which is only not functional but a quirk of history.

The video makes an argument for marketing being the reason.

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1. goatlover ◴[] No.21285606[source]
JS isn't really a functional language, it's an imperative, prototype-based language with partial functional support that allows multiple coding styles, like most of the popular scripting languages.
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2. blain_the_train ◴[] No.21287041[source]
Yes. Which is why I said it's not functional. Because of a marketing choice.