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From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: On whether C has first-class composable functions
Message-ID: <4408:Jan421:44:3391@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 4 Jan 91 21:44:33 GMT
References: <1990Dec29.110202.3862@mathrt0.math.chalmers.se> <17557:Jan219:22:3191@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <442@data.UUCP>
Organization: IR
Lines: 25

In article <442@data.UUCP> kend@data.UUCP (Ken Dickey) writes:
> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
> >I think we all agree on what ``first-class,'' ``composable,'' and
> >``function'' mean. A first-class object can be passed as arguments and
> >assigned to variables.
  [ ... ]
> There is an important property of "first-class" objects missing here.
> A first-class object does not have to be named.  

Do you have a reference? As always, I'm doing my best to use standard
terminology; I just haven't seen any references that demand a syntactic
restriction like that.

> >To sum up: ``C has first-class composable functions with reasonable
> >efficiency and without ridiculously complicated syntax'' is good enough
> >for me.
  [ ... ]
> By the way, what function would "apply(compose(compose,f),x);" return in C?
> Strike "composable"?

What are you talking about? It doesn't make sense to compose a function
that takes two arguments, at least not without a more general notation.
I can't make heads or tails of your example.

---Dan