Subject: Re: gethash substring From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 25 Aug 2002 03:04:12 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3239233452681995@naggum.no> * Pierpaolo BERNARDI | If you are using hash-tables you are not doing functional programming | anyway. * Ed L Cashin | Why not? Could you elaborate? If functions can return numbers then | why not hash tables? The hash table operations do not return a new hashtable with the specified changes made and retain the old value. Quite contrary, the whole point is to modify the state of an existing object. This is a side effect and is not thus sufficiently functional. (When functional programming languages support I/O, I see little point in arguing about such things, as they have already proved that at least the side effect of changing the state of some I/O stream is allowable, but for some reason, the functional programming paradigm has not been shot down as fundamentally silly in its excesses.) -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.