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I recently came across the term flow-based programming as a paradigm. According to this wikipedia article the paradigm is about defining separate "black-box" processes that exchange data with each other and can be recombined to produce different functionality.

My question is, what is the difference between flow-based programming and functional programming? To me, it sounds like these "processes" are essentially functions, and of course functions can be recombined externally, without modifying them internally.

Thanks in advance!

Alexandros Gouvatsos
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    [programmers](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/) would be a better place to ask. It is off-topic here on SO since you don't show any source code. – Basile Starynkevitch Feb 05 '15 at 12:41
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    BTW, functions can be recursive, but flow programming is not... – Basile Starynkevitch Feb 05 '15 at 12:42
  • `FBP promotes high-level, functional style of specifications that simplify reasoning about system behavior. `, so, I think F-BP can be very similar to the FP. Lots of programming languages have function, but not everyone are in FP style. FP has higher-order functions/1st class functions (passing function to function), you use more recursion than loops (`while`, `repeat`, `for` etc), etc. So, I think that F-BP can be implemented in a decent Object oriented programming (Object with a send and a recieve methods). Well, I don't really know FBP but I think I'm somehow right. – Darek Nędza Aug 10 '15 at 11:28
  • @BasileStarynkevitch You mean the "black boxes" in flow programming aren't recursive, right? Well, can you connect the "black boxes" like this: A => B => A ? If yes, then it is a indirect recursion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion_(computer_science)#Indirect_recursion – Darek Nędza Aug 10 '15 at 11:42

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