Programming with Higher Order Functions

A. Maassen

	   Recursion is the most important control structure in
	   applicative languages, but the extensive use of recursive
	   definitions tends to spoil readability and understandability
	   of programs. Besides, many programmers don't like to use
	   recursion. We suggest a choice of higher order functions which
	   enable programmers to write concise and (almost) recursion-free
	   functional programs. Our approach is heuristical: we
	   developed our higher order functions by observing what
	   kind of programming patterns appeared repeatedly when we
	   wrote functional programs for a number of problems. Most
	   of our higher order functions are tightly related to
	   data structures. We suggest a choice of problem-oriented
	   applicative data structures and discuss aspects of an efficient
	   implementation.  A major revision  of this technical report
	   appeared in Science of Computer Programming 18 (1992): 1 - 38.