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Functional Languages Under .NET/CLR

Posted by Hemos on from the fuel-for-the-fire dept.

Numen writes "With all the talk of .NET being thrown about there is a common factor occuring through many discussions, namely the claim that .NET will be unable to address functional and logic languages such as Prolog and LISP. To this end I would like to drawn peoples' attention to two resources, that shown how this may well be a non-issue, and to ask, does this change anybodies mind? "

5 of 344 comments (clear)

  1. Mondrian for .NET by cdmoyer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Another good example, as covered in Dr. Dobbs last issue, is Mondrian. You can read a paper about it here(it's a PDF). You can download the compiler and view documentation at the mondria-script web-site.

    Here's a blurb from Dr. Dobbs:
    Mondrian is a modern, purely functional language specifically designed to leverage the possibilities of the .NET Framework.

    --
    /* CDM */
  2. Re:Who thought this? by relinquish · · Score: 3, Informative
    As far as I understand the issue is a performance one.

    For example, scheme is hard to compile towards the JVM or standard C because both lack proper tail call implementation (poping the parameters in the stack before calling a function in tail position).

    You can of course circumvent this because as you say the target language is Turing complete, but you lose a lot on performance if the target isn't tailored to this particular use.

    --
    Relinquish
  3. Haskell by hoggy · · Score: 5, Informative
    Given that one of the main brains behind Haskell now works for Microsoft Research and has always been a strong proponent of FP on commercial platforms - I'd be surprised as heck if the Glorious Haskell Compiler wasn't targetting .NET real soon.

    I took a look around and found this link to a guy called Don Syme at Microsoft Research who appears to be working on just this.

    There's also the Mondrian project, which implements Haskell.

  4. Initialization speed and bytecode verification by brad.hill · · Score: 3, Informative

    Part of Java's slowness in initializing is that it does extensive security oriented bytecode verification of every class loaded. If .NET doesn't do that, it will be faster, but arguably not as secure against people rearranging the CLR bytecodes in ways that a compiler conforming to the security spec wouldn't. BTW: You can disable this as a command line option to your JVM and speed things up if you trust your .class files, but the default is to be secure.

  5. Re:GNOME and .NET change of heart by elflord · · Score: 3, Informative
    I have to disagree. First of all, it being illegal to pay them less means nothing. I think there's a loophole with consulting companies. They can bill at the same rate as citizen, but pay the slave^H^H^H^H^Hconsultant whatever they want.

    A friend of mine worked at one of these consulting companies, and their salaries were actually pretty decent. Of course, an anecdote doesn't prove anything, but suff"ice it to say, I am sceptical. However, I think the H1B visas should require a minimum salary.

    This is going to show my redneck heritage, but I believe this - we can't afford to have a bunch of non-citizens in the USA stealing jobs from citizens by undercutting us in every way.

    Well that's too bad, because the alternative is to have a bunch of non-citizens out of the USA stealing jobs from citizens by "undercutting" you.

    What we have with the H1Bs is the recipe to economic collapse, rapid inflation, etc.

    There's little in the way of evidence to support this claim. I would argue that on the contrary, isolationist policies are a sure recipe to doom. The problem is that there is change due to the unsustainable situation where people in India have much lower salaries than their American counterparts. Because of this, it's in the interests of companies to prefer the Indians, and fire the Americans since they're cheaper. A lot of people are getting burned by the transition (this always happens when economies undergo any type of transition) The key is to put the brakes on the transition so that no-one gets burned more than necessary.

    Just look at the early 20th century immigration boom. That eventually led to the great depression, which led to WWII.

    Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Lots of things led to the great depression (ponzi schemes, a poorly regulated stock exchange, and an unsustainable boom), and lots of things led to WWII (namely, Germanys hardship had a lot to do with the "victors justice" at the end of WWI