Default Value

[rusi]

On Saturday, June 22, 2013 8:25:15 AM UTC+5:30, Rick Johnson wrote:
> On Friday, June 21, 2013 9:32:43 PM UTC-5, rusi wrote:
> > So Rick... I agree with you... all these theoreticians
> > should be burnt at the stake! 

> > On a more serious note: many
> > people make similar mistakes eg Haskellers who think
> > Haskell is safe. Safer (than something or other) -- Ok
> > Safe -- NO
> 
> 
> So now you're going to attempt to defeat my idea by
> suggesting that it chalks up to nothing more than a safety
> measure? How many times must i explain the simple concept
> of stateless subroutines and hazards of the current 
> incarnation Python FUNCtions (You smell the func!)

I appreciate Rick that you are committed to a better programming language.
And you too need to appreciate that many intelligent and capable people for the last 50 years have had similar goals.  When those goals are soft eg strictures on cohesion and coupling -- which is what your wish for stateless procedures amounts to -- then those remain suggestions and cannot be imposed.
When those goals are made hard as in functional programming then other problems result such as performance hits, what-to-do-about-IO etc etc.

See my blog
http://blog.languager.org/2012/11/imperative-programming-lessons-not.html
for a history of wishes akin to yours and lessons not learnt.

In short the problems accruing from unconstrained imperative programming are severe and the solutions are hard.

In the meanwhile, goals such as your 'keep-procedures-stateless' can and should certainly be practised in the human sphere even if not implemented in the programming language sphere.  The aggregation of such 'best-practices' is what I call FP as an ideology rather than as technology.
I have a collection here 
http://blog.languager.org/2012/10/functional-programming-lost-booty.html
And I would welcome suggestions/discussions on the same.