Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!hawk!billk From: billk@hawk.cs.ukans.edu (Bill Kinnersley) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: A comment on language wars. Message-ID: <1991Mar10.145908.10575@hawk.cs.ukans.edu> Date: 10 Mar 91 14:59:08 GMT References: <7HY9P4G@xds13.ferranti.com> Organization: University of Kansas Computer Science Dept Lines: 23 In article <7HY9P4G@xds13.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: : : I suspect that if you remove the explicit interpreter and examined the : remaining language, I will still be able to point to a part of the : language and say "that's the interpreter!". That will be the part that : takes a closure and executes it. In Forth terms, Lisp has an outer and : an inner interpreter. : : You might object that this is a Bernsteinian definition of "interpreter", : but I think it is a distinguishing point between languages that have first : class functions and those that don't. : Definition of an interpreter: A case statement inside a do loop. Anything that examines a sequence of data items and makes a series of decisions based on what it finds there..."That's an interpreter!" -- --Bill Kinnersley billk@hawk.cs.ukans.edu 226 Transfer complete.