Whoops - the discussion (much of it) seems to being confusing three FP related things: seas of parentheses, first-class functions, and expression-orientation.
Not all functional languages use seas of parantheses - this is a syntax choice made by the Lisp family of languages. Yep - it's horrible, but it's not intrinsic to FP.
First-class functions are tricky beasts. Some procedural or OO langauges have a similar power - for example, function-pointer variables in C. Do you kow anyone who uses these regularly?
But FP languages are also expression-orientated. I've written a compiler in Sisal (a pure expression-oriented language, but not FP). I liked the pure expression-orientation, and it was easy to use.
Essentially, in a pure expression-oriented language, you have write-once variables. You can only assign a value to a variable once - and must do it once. This gives you great compile-time checking, and makes variable-declaration comments even more useful.
Sisal's syntax is a typical procedural language syntax - hardly a parenthesis in sight, and normal looking variable declarations, if statements, loops, etc. There is a slight price - you declare more variables, and loops have an extra construct to distinguish between this-iteration and last-iteration variables - but this is easy to get the hang of.
In summary... The nasty syntax isn't intrinsic to FP, and if you don't like first-class functions you don't have to use them. Write-once variables are a great idea from FP, which can be adapted into procedural programming as a stylistic thing, or incorporated into procedural-seeming language design.
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Whoops - the discussion (much of it) seems to being confusing three FP
... The nasty syntax isn't intrinsic to FP, and if you
related things: seas of parentheses, first-class functions, and
expression-orientation.
Not all functional languages use seas of parantheses - this is a
syntax choice made by the Lisp family of languages. Yep - it's
horrible, but it's not intrinsic to FP.
First-class functions are tricky beasts. Some procedural or OO
langauges have a similar power - for example, function-pointer
variables in C. Do you kow anyone who uses these regularly?
But FP languages are also expression-orientated. I've written a
compiler in Sisal (a pure expression-oriented language, but not FP). I
liked the pure expression-orientation, and it was easy to use.
Essentially, in a pure expression-oriented language, you have
write-once variables. You can only assign a value to a variable once -
and must do it once. This gives you great compile-time checking, and
makes variable-declaration comments even more useful.
Sisal's syntax is a typical procedural language syntax - hardly a
parenthesis in sight, and normal looking variable declarations, if
statements, loops, etc. There is a slight price - you declare more
variables, and loops have an extra construct to distinguish between
this-iteration and last-iteration variables - but this is easy to get
the hang of.
In summary
don't like first-class functions you don't have to use
them. Write-once variables are a great idea from FP, which can be
adapted into procedural programming as a stylistic thing, or
incorporated into procedural-seeming language design.