Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!cerritos.edu!arizona.edu!arizona!gudeman
From: gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: What ``first-class'' means in comp.lang.misc
Message-ID: <368@coatimundi.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 10 Jan 91 21:39:17 GMT
Sender: news@cs.arizona.edu
Lines: 21

In article  <2772@charon.cwi.nl> Guido van Rossum writes:

]The real problem with C functions (compared to Scheme or Lisp functions,
]for instance) is that their "closure" only contains global variables.

I'd say this is one of the major parts of the disagreement over the
meaning of "first-class".  Some people are trying to use the term to
compare C functions with Lisp functions, however the term is not
supposed to compare features of different languages, it is meant to
compare features of a single language.

Obviously C does not have the powerful functionals that Lisp has, but
I don't think the difference should be stated in terms of "first
class".  A better characterization would be "C does not have
functionals" or "C does not have closures", or "You cannot dynamically
create functions in C".  All of which are true (modulo a convenient
definition of "functional").
--
					David Gudeman
gudeman@cs.arizona.edu
noao!arizona!gudeman