Aucbvax.5495 net.applic utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!baden Wed Dec 16 19:21:43 1981 What are they for? I have a running FP interpreter (modelled after Backus's Turing award Lecture) written in Franz LISP. I have received an FFP system from Purdue, also an FP interpeter from UCLA, both written in C. My interpreter contains no statistics gathering hooks as do the other two systems; I intend to add these later. What might these languages be used for? I don't see FP or FFP proper as a higher level programming language; rather I see it as a research tool. One idea that has interested me is a 'Functional APL', the chief intent here is to permit easy subdivision of problems (e.g. it might be easier to break an array in half than a linked list in half), and to reduce the amount of indirection (a related problem). We may of course be a little optimistic since the subdivision of problems, and the resultant information migration and coalescing is not an easy problem to solve. I see a functional system as being embedded in a more traditional one in the sense that state must be maintained, albeit much less often then in say a non-applicative system. One way might be to allow single assignments. On another note I see an applicative architecture as well suited to the VLSI design space: reduction of global state to help reduce the dependence upon global interconnects. If we can the size of interconnects down then we might get a faster running chip, and can increase the amount of concurrency. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.