Why no one uses functional languages

To say that no one usesfunctional languagesis an exaggeration. Phonecalls in the EuropeanParliament are routedby programswritten in Ericsson’ s functional languageErlang. Virtual CDs are distributed on Cornell’s network via the Ensemblesystemwritten in INRIA’s CAML, andrealCDsareshippedby Polygramin EuropeusingSoftwareAG’s NaturalExpert. Functional languagesarethelanguageof choicefor writing theorem provers,including the HOL systemwhich helpeddebug thedesignof theHP 9000line of multiprocessors. These applicationsandothersaredescribedin a previous column[1].

[1]  Philip Wadler.  An angry half-dozen , 1998, SIGP.

[2]  Simon L. Peyton Jones,et al.  Lazy functional state threads , 1994, PLDI '94.

[3]  Cordelia V. Hall,et al.  NATURAL EXPERT: a commercial functional programming environment , 1997, Journal of Functional Programming.

[4]  Philip Wadler,et al.  How to declare an imperative , 1997, CSUR.

[5]  Simon L. Peyton Jones,et al.  Scripting COM components in Haskell , 1998, Proceedings. Fifth International Conference on Software Reuse (Cat. No.98TB100203).