Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> So it's kinda like SQL - it's basically stateless, except for some 
> top-level state mutation. (?)

Hmmm. Not really.  I'd say more like, "it isn't functional, it's just 
single-assignment". If you call a function with the same arguments, 
it'll give you the same results, except if it actually looks in its 
message queue. But since the only way to communicate with a process is 
via its message queue, this isn't saying much. Oh, and there are also 
calls to (for example) create a new process or kill off an old process. 
There's also one global mutable hash table per process. So it isn't 
really functional in the sense that the same function necessarily 
produces the same result for a given input. It's more that it's a 
single-assignment language aspiring to be functional but only including 
the annoying parts.  It does have closures, tho.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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