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Yeah, people talk about "functional languages" as if they're a unified thing. IMO the differences between the strongly typed ML/Haskell tradition and the Lisp tradition are as big as the differences between either and "OO languages" or "imperative languages", but that's not the way it's usually presented.


That's nonsense. Lisp in the functional style vs. Haskell is two different implementations of what are at their essence the same ideas. However, lisp is multi-paradigm, which complicates the comparison somewhat...


What are the essential features that they share?


They're both primarily based on lambda calculus. Although haskell on typed lambda calculus. They both emphasize purity over mutations. They both are designed to make higher-orderisms idiomatic.

But the point isn't so much the features they share. I'd be the first to admit that Lisp and Haskell are very different. But functional programming in both is very much based on the same ideas. Claiming that they're as different as OO vs imperative is like saying that washing dishes by hand is as different to using a dishwasher as football is to baseball.




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