This obscure language represents a peculiar corner of the programming language world called functional languages. One of the peculiar things about such languages is that they don’t have variables. Although Haskell isn’t widely known among programmers, those who know of functional languages suspect that they, too, are rather slow
>>39 2 is a constant, because it's value cant vary between applications of the function.
If we implement integers as mutable strings, then it can:
*&"2" = 3;
>>42
I'm not >>39, but in lambda calculus, arguments are called ``bound variables´´, extern bindings (from the outer scope) are called ``free variables´´.
In mathematics, a variable is indeed ``constant'', you don't setf them in the middle of an expression, but they can be any value, depending on what the function is called with.
Now, we all know that Haskell is for pure functional mathematical faggots, therefore it has variables, in the mathematical sense.
The bound variables/free variables thing applies also to Lisp, due to its resemblance with lambda calculus.
Name:
Anonymous2011-01-31 11:59
>>45
They are done this way in the first place. Computer circuitry manipulates bitstrings.
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Anonymous2011-01-31 12:01
>>47
It needs to be said very firmly that LISP is not a functional language at all. My suspicion is that the success of Lisp set back the development of a properly functional style of programming by at least ten years. -- David Turner
Lisp owes its survival specifically to the fact that its programs are lists, which everyone, including me, has regarded as a disadvantage. -- John McCarthy
>>49
Professor David Turner is a British computer scientist.
He has a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford. He has held professorships at Queen Mary College, London, University of Texas at Austin and the University of Kent at Canterbury, where he now retains the post of Emeritus Professor.
He is currently (2004) Professor of Computation at Middlesex University, England.
He is best known for inventing combinator graph reduction and for designing and implementing three seminal functional programming languages SASL, KRC and Miranda, the last of which was awarded a medal for Technical Achievement by the British Computer Society (BCS Awards, 1990).
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Anonymous2011-01-31 12:17
"SASL, KRC and Miranda" were led to invention of Haskell.