The semantic elegance of applicative languages
David Andrew Turner · 1981
In what does the alleged superiority of applicative languages consist? In the last analysis the answer must be in terms of the reduction in the time required to produce a correct program to solve a given problem. On reflection I decided that the best way to demonstrate this would be to take some reasonably non-trivial problem and show how, by proceeding within a certain kind of applicative language framework it was possible to develop a working solution with a fraction of the effort that would have been necessary in a conventional imperative language. The particular problem I have chosen also brings out a number of general points of interest which I shall discuss briefly afterwards.