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Computer Programming Software Terms, Glossary and Dictionary
Functional Programming Language
Functional programming languages, based on the functional programming paradigm, is a type of programming languages that consist of a set of (possibly recursive) function definitions and an expression whose value is output as the program's result. Functional programing languages are one kind of declarative language. They are based on the typed lambda calculus with constants. There are no side-effects to expression evaluation so an expression. Furthermore, an expression can always be replaced by its value without changing the overall result (referential transparency). Functional programming languages have largely been emphasized in academia rather than in commercial software development. Notable exceptions are Erlang (highly-concurrent telecom applications), J and K (financial analysis), and domain-specific programming languages like XSLT. Important influences on functional programming have been the lambda calculus, the APL programming language, the Lisp programming language, and more recently the Haskell programming language.
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