Even in the world of functional programming, there's an argument to be made that `fold` is a bit of a code smell, in a similar vein as `while` being slightly smelly in an imperative code base. There's good reasons for each to be used, but they are such low level iteration primitives that you might be better off with a higher one (e.g. for loops or iterators in imperative programs; in FP you might reach for monoidic reduces (as opposed to folds where the accumulator is a different type from the list element), monadic traverses, or recursion schemes). Even though you can implement iterators or for loops in terms of while loops, you probably shouldn't, and similar for functional traversals.
In languages like python or Java though, you don't really have access to many of the higher power functional traversals however. So that puts you into a similar kind of bind as working in a language with only while loops
Probably because while is the source of many infinite loops, and because it’s sometimes faster and more rigorous to compute the length ahead of going into the loop.
That said, I personally don’t think it’s smelly at all.
s-zeng · · focus · HN ↗
In languages like python or Java though, you don't really have access to many of the higher power functional traversals however. So that puts you into a similar kind of bind as working in a language with only while loops
grebc · · focus · HN ↗
Care to explain?
d--b · · focus · HN ↗
That said, I personally don’t think it’s smelly at all.