Functional Programming Languages?

[Oliver Anhuth]

I recently came in touch which functional programming (never did before). The topic seems to be quite fascinating and I would like to play around a little more, but I am confused by the multitude of functional programming languages. What are the differences between ML / Scheme (Lisp) / Haskell / Miranda / etc ? What is the best language to learn (no real world usage required)? Regards Oliver

[Braulio Dez]

Hi From Málaga !, In the university we I studied Haskell, It´s quite funny and there is a lot of things about that, Miranda I think it´s older, and Lisp it´s quite used as well. For Haskell there is a GUI called Gofer that is free. Bye ! Braulio

[Ray Kinsella]

I learned Lisp at university (its pretty cool, once you get the hang of it) and even got to use it in the 'Real World' ... cool huh! Regards Ray "Je Suis Mort De Rire"

[Navin]

I had to learn Scheme in college. Indeed, it was quite strange at first, since it is nothing like "regular" or object-oriented languages. Too many parentheses, though. :) The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

[moliate]

I think Haskell is the purest functional language. If you want to learn functional programming, lambda calculus and lazy evaluation, this is the language of choice. Lisp is still the dominant AI language, and you might find it more useful for "real-world" applications. It is not as pure, but it has been around for a while and evolved (and mutated) quite a lot. I think, but I'm not sure, that it is the oldest computer language still in use. Another tip: if you have a Linux box, take a look at the Emacs editor. It has a great Haskell mode, and an even better Lisp mode (including an interpreter). Emacs is based on Lisp, and so are numerous other GNU applications, meaning you will never run out of code samples... /moliate