Re: functional languages ill-suited for large programs?

[Greg Travis <address@hidden>]

Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com> sed:
> The problem is that the cached version isn't a stateless function any
> more.  If you've coded it right, you could prove that it acts like
> one, but it's not coded as one; a pure functional language requires
> you to reveal that.

There's an interesting paper by Peyton Jones that seems to allow
memoization, by permitting "benign side effects".  I haven't read it
in a while, but I bet it offers some interesting ideas.

It even deals with the issue of dropping values from the memo table.

Greg

(P.S. Howdy, Jimb.)