Some might say this belongs in the ''Game Programming'' forum but really its a more general issue. I read loads of articles on here, and elsewhere, and there are always heated arguments over whether C++ with object orientated design is better than pure C. Thats not to mention the hundreds of other posts regarding Java, Basic and a host of other languages. The one thing I have not come across is anyone who has ever even mentioned a functional progamming language, ML, or Haskell for example. I was wondering if anyone has ever considered, or even used, any lazy functional languages for games? Ok, I''d be very suprised if anyone has written a whole game in one of these languages. I know there is a Dutch(maybe German, can''t remember) group working on porting Quake(tm) to Haskell. I''m prepared to bet that game programming would have a lot to benefit from using these languages, but I''ll relent probably only for A.I. and maybe physics engines for now. Comments? Thoughts? Ideas? Anything? A Functional Programming convert

Can''t say I really mastered functional programing, but I know there are OpenGL bindings for SML. Don''t think I''d use it to write a game though.

The port to Haskell for Quake is being done by Swedish.

I''m currently learning Haskell, and it certainly does have OpenGL bindings(incomplete as of now though). However, I don''t have benchmarks to show how suitable a program written in Haskell is, speed-wise.

I barely was able to download GHC yesterday without getting a bad checksum. Damn 56k

I think functional languages in general have potential in games.

Good luck!

For many years the scheme class at my university has revolved around the writing of a text adventure game.