Functional programming (was Re: Default value in function parameters?)

[Philippe Lhoste <PhiLho@...>]

Rici Lake wrote:
> But mine is still 25% faster, and can be improved even more by memoising:
>
> rlake@freeb:~$ time lua511 -l 'Memoise' -e 'local rep = 
> Memoise(function(n) return ("%d"):rep(n) end); for i = 1, 1e5 do local t 
> = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7}; local a = rep[#t]:format(unpack(t)) end'

It was explained in this very list a long time ago, but I can't memorize 
what memoise is... :-)

That leads me to a slightly off-topic field -- but of interest for most 
programmers, I think.

I am a procedural programmer by experience (lot of Basic, C, assembly 
language...) and habits.
I trained myself on OO design, concepts that were hard to assimilate 
until I read OReilly's Head On Java, which explains clearly this stuff.

I am starting to get used to think OO, although not necessarily 
convinced that it is the ultimate methodology.
I discovered in this list functional programming, elsewhere other 
philosophies/methodologies like Xtreme programming (I feel I am mixing 
up stuff here :-) ).

One question is: is there a good tutorial on functional programming, 
ideally not relying too much on a given language. I don't have time to 
re-learn Lisp or to study Scheme.

That said, a colleague lent me a copy of Head First Patterns. I have 
base knowledge of (GoF) patterns, but again, it is not obvious to 
assimilate them fully (no Borg here).

This brings me back to Lua. Do you think (some of) these patterns can 
apply to this language? I mean, in its "purest" form, ie. without OO 
system built above it.

And are they usable in functional programming? Or do this methodology 
(?) has patterns of its own?

Just curious, I learned so much from this list!

--
Philippe Lhoste
--  (near) Paris -- France
--  http://Phi.Lho.free.fr
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