hemanth / functional-programming-jargon

Jargon from the functional programming world in simple terms!
http://git.io/fp-jargons
MIT License
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Idempotent inaccurate #184

Closed niclash closed 6 years ago

niclash commented 6 years ago

Although the provided explanation that "f(x) is idempotent, if and only if f(x) == f(f(x))" is the original academic meaning, in industry jargon it not the case. There, an idempotent call (function, procedure, rpc,...) is one that can be repeated with the same inputs many times, returning the same value and not causing any additional side effects (say, issue the payment request many times).

I suggest that some wording of this is added.

jethrolarson commented 6 years ago

The aim of this glossary is not to be a dictionary of all possible uses of each word but but to focus on functional programming meanings. Adding definitions for other usage outside of that could confuse readers. In particular, idempotent procedures focus on external effects which are counter to functional programming goals so if we add anything about that it should be as contrast

On Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 5:16 PM Niclas Hedhman notifications@github.com wrote:

Although the provided explanation that "f(x) is idempotent, if and only if f(x) == f(f(x))" is the original academic meaning, in industry jargon it not the case. There, an idempotent call (function, procedure, rpc,...) is one that can be repeated with the same inputs many times, returning the same value and not causing any additional side effects (say, issue the payment request many times).

I suggest that some wording of this is added.

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niclash commented 6 years ago

Ok. Np.