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> Someone should know about what fp is before writing a book like this.

1. Are you quite sure John Ousterhout (who invented Tcl[1], comparing it to Lisp in section 7 of the original paper) doesn't "know about what fp is" as you say?

2. Do you think that the main reason functional programming hasn't taken off in systems programming is that practitioners are ignorant, or do you think there might be issues with fp systems that prevent its adoption?

[1] https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/papers/tcl-usenix.p...



The book needs to talk about those issues and trade offs.

Fp with lisp is only a fraction of fp. I of course am talking more along the lines of pure fp which lisp is not.


Sure, fp in Lisp might not always be true (scotsman) fp. ;-)

But omitting fp in the book is not evidence that Ousterhout is ignorant of fp, and there is certainly evidence to the contrary.

The likely explanation, given that he's developed a number of systems from Sprite to Tcl/Tk to RAMCloud to HOMA, is that he is addressing the current practice of systems programming, which remains primarily imperative.




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