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From: oz@yunexus.yorku.ca (Ozan Yigit)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: class-sic. [Re: On whether C has ...]
Message-ID: <20058@yunexus.YorkU.CA>
Date: 8 Jan 91 23:52:57 GMT
References: <442@data.UUCP> <4408:Jan421:44:3391@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <20021@yunexus.YorkU.CA> <24547:Jan822:05:4191@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
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In article <24547:Jan822:05:4191@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes some more:

> On the contrary. Every reference I've found either (1) doesn't define
> first-class; (2) makes ``first-class'' so restrictive that nothing in C
> or Ada can possibly be first-class; or (3) defines ``first-class'' as
> ``can be passed as an argument and [when there are variables] assigned
> to variables.''

Maybe you are only looking for something that is supposed to verify *your*
concept of first-class-ness. Try a copy of Stoy [1]: there is a section in
it about first-class-ness and first-class functions. 

>You have this habit of posting long definitions without verifying that
>they have anything to do with your point.

You have this habit of never quite seeing any other point except your
very own. 

Read what Clinger has to say. 

You said earlier:

>>>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.

You are shown at least three references so far on this topic, two by Ken
and one by me. Perhaps your ``standard terminology'' isn't.

>Question 1: When you posted that definition, did you believe that it
>defined ``first-class''? 

Of course, I think it is a convincing definition, albeit somewhat more
elaborate than the street version. 

>Question 2: Do you realize that if the properties you posted are taken
>to define ``first-class,'' then nothing in Ada is ``first-class''?

Irrelevant.

>I conjecture that Scheme advertisers have tried to corrupt the meaning
>of ``first-class,'' by adding properties that make Scheme objects into
>``first-class'' objects while making objects in other languages into
>non-``first-class'' objects.

Please spare me your conjectures. If you want to know more about scheme,
you know where to find it. 

>... but ``first-class'' wasn't invented with Scheme.

In other words, you would rather subscribe [for whatever reason] to some
other definition of the concept, than to accept [in my opinion] a more
refined, less restricted concept that is a encapsulated in [amongst other
languages] scheme.

... 
oz
---
[1] Stoy, Joseph E., Denotational Semantics: The Scott-Strachey
Approach to Programming Language Theory, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1977
---
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