Functional Programming Languages (FPL)
1. Definitions .................................................................. 3
2. Applications ................................................................ 3
3. Examples .................................................................... 4
4. FPL Characteristics:.................................................... 5
5. Lambda calculus (LC) ................................................ 6
5.1. LC expressions forms ......................................... 6
5.2. Semantic of Functional Computations: ............... 8
5.3. Python Lambda Expression ................................ 9
6. Functions in FPLs ..................................................... 11
7. IPL vs. FPL ............................................................... 13
8. Scheme overview ...................................................... 14
8.1. Get your own Scheme from MIT ...................... 14
8.2. General overview .............................................. 14
8.3. Data Typing ...................................................... 15
8.4. Comments ......................................................... 15
8.5. Recursion Instead of Iteration ........................... 16
8.6. Evaluation ......................................................... 17
8.7. Storing and using Scheme code ........................ 17
8.8. Variables ........................................................... 18
8.9. Data types ......................................................... 19
8.10. Arithmetic functions ......................................... 20
8.11. Selection functions............................................ 21
8.12. Iteration............................................................. 26
8.13. Defining functions ............................................ 27
9. ML ............................................................................ 28
10. Haskell ...................................................................... 29
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11. Functional Programming Using Python .................... 31
11.1. List Manipulation.............................................. 31
11.2. Car & CDR ....................................................... 35
12. Functions .................................................................. 37
12.1. Composition...................................................... 37
12.2. Apply-to-all functions ....................................... 38
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1. Definitions
Functional programming languages were originally developed
specifically to handle symbolic computation and list-
processing applications.
In FPLs the programmer is concerned only with functionality,
not with memory-related variable storage and assignment
sequences.
FPL can be categorized into two types;
PURE functional languages, which support only the
functional paradigm (Haskell), and
Impure functional languages that can also be used for
writing imperative-style programs (LISP).
2. Applications
AI is the main application domain for functional
programming, covering topics such as:
expert systems
knowledge representation
machine learning
natural language processing
modelling speech and vision
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o In terms of symbolic computation, functional
programming languages have also proven useful in
some editing environments (EMACS) and some
mathematical software (particularly calculus)
Lisp and its derivatives are still the dominant functional
languages (we will consider one of the simpler derivatives,
Scheme, in some detail).
3. Examples
Programming Languages:
o Lisp, Scheme, Miranda, Sisal, Haskell, APL, ML
Code Examples: Compute the sum of n integers
o A C implementation:
Sum=0;
for(i=1;i<=n;++i)
sum +=i;
Computations is done by assignment.
o A Haskell implementation:
sum [1..10]
Computations is function application.
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