From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Original-To: caml-list@sympa.inria.fr Delivered-To: caml-list@sympa.inria.fr Received: from mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr (mail2-relais-roc.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.83]) by sympa.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3A9567EE51 for ; Fri, 24 May 2013 14:35:59 +0200 (CEST) Received-SPF: None (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of rixed@happyleptic.org) identity=pra; client-ip=212.27.42.4; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="rixed@happyleptic.org"; x-sender="rixed@happyleptic.org"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible Received-SPF: None (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of rixed@happyleptic.org) identity=mailfrom; client-ip=212.27.42.4; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="rixed@happyleptic.org"; x-sender="rixed@happyleptic.org"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible Received-SPF: None (mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of postmaster@smtp4-g21.free.fr) identity=helo; client-ip=212.27.42.4; receiver=mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="rixed@happyleptic.org"; x-sender="postmaster@smtp4-g21.free.fr"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AgECABJen1HUGyoElGdsb2JhbABZxVUEAYECFg4BAQEBBw0JCRQDJYIjAQEEATIBOBMLCyETEg8FKIg7CrpQjgaBHhaCXWEDk2qDUJRS X-IPAS-Result: AgECABJen1HUGyoElGdsb2JhbABZxVUEAYECFg4BAQEBBw0JCRQDJYIjAQEEATIBOBMLCyETEg8FKIg7CrpQjgaBHhaCXWEDk2qDUJRS X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.87,735,1363129200"; d="scan'208";a="18844142" Received: from smtp4-g21.free.fr ([212.27.42.4]) by mail2-smtp-roc.national.inria.fr with ESMTP; 24 May 2013 14:35:57 +0200 Received: from ombreroze.happyleptic.org (unknown [82.229.213.209]) by smtp4-g21.free.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5061A4C81EF for ; Fri, 24 May 2013 14:35:53 +0200 (CEST) Received: from rixed by ombreroze.happyleptic.org with local (Exim 4.80) (envelope-from ) id 1UfrDr-0002M6-NC for caml-list@inria.fr; Fri, 24 May 2013 14:35:51 +0200 Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 14:35:51 +0200 From: rixed@happyleptic.org To: caml-list@inria.fr Message-ID: <20130524123551.GA7605@ombreroze.happyleptic.org> References: <519F1CF6.7050007@riken.jp> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: <519F1CF6.7050007@riken.jp> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Subject: Re: [Caml-list] French study on security and functional languages > The document "État des lieux des langages fonctionnels" > is interesting even out of the context of computer security. For non french readers: it's typical project management ideas from the 19th century. The paper describes a vision of programming projects that's old, erroneous but still prevalent amongst many central administrations, where you first have some infallible specification (it's not stated, but this probably comes from a comity of experts) which is passed down to the programmers, and the main question that's studied is "what tools should these programmers use in order to ensure the code comply to the specifications". Of course, anyone with any experience of how real projects fail in practice will know that most often than not the fatal flaws are in the specifications right from the start, or are introduced to circumvent the rigid structure imposed by such specifications, and that if you want a project to met its goal you have to question the overall process and not merely the tools used by the programmers, which, independent on how much some may be nice and others awful, make little difference in most cases. Then the paper try to convince the reader that functional languages have only advantages over procedural languages, citing our friend J. Harrop from some years ago and other blogs. Follow a rapid and honest presentation of many languages considered functional, then a table summarizing the various opinions the author have about some qualities of these languages. For some time, there seams to be a new tendency to study scientifically the various languages and idioms in existence. This LaFoSec project clearly don't fall in this category. In my humble opinion as a mere taxpayer, government funding would be much more usefully spent in postmortem study of past projects, funding large experiences comparing various tools or making an inventory of the current practices/tools in the industry...