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Re: [ProgSoc] CSS and Divs



Ryan Heise wrote:
On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 05:35:26AM +0000, John Elliot wrote:
And to be honest, I can't think of a better word than
'declarative'.

I prefer 'functional'.

But 'functional' does not describe the same class of languages as 'declarative'.

I think my point is fairly simple: the designation 'declarative programming language' is arbitrary. There is no underlying 'semantic'. That is, there is no 'pattern'. Membership in the set 'declarative programming language' isn't *meaningful*, in the strictest sense of the word.


I suspect we now each have an appreciation of each others' position, so it's probably not worth belabouring this further.

You can use the term 'declarative programming language' to designate a language which encourages a particular mode of expression, and I can understand this term to communicate nothing. I.e. there is no information communicated regarding a language's capabilities if given the designation 'declarative'. You will also have to tell me if the language is functional, object-oriented, procedural, turing-complete, etc.

I'll leave you with a quick declarative program:

There is a procedure called main. Resolution of main results in an integral value. Invocation of main renders the result 37. The result of the program is as if main had been invoked.

Please find the result of the program.








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