Re: functional languages ill-suited for large programs?

[address@hidden]

Quoting Robby Findler <robby@cs.uchicago.edu>:
> On Oct 31, 2003, at 2:31 PM, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
[..]
> > That's not necessarily the case. The optimizer for a pure functional
> > language will know that a function is pure and can handle
> > memoization/caching behind your back. That requires more work on the
> > part of the compiler, but there is no reason that it can't be done.
> 
> In fact, every lazy language I know of does this. Lazyness is one of 
> the side benefits of being purely functional, in fact.

Note that trivial delaying of computation, like is done implicitly by lazy
languages, has basically almost nothing to do with the kind of "caching
optimizations", or the algorithm design technique known as Dynamic
Programming, that I believe we have been discussing here.

Regards,
  Vesa Karvonen