Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!ogccse!blake!uw-beaver!cornell!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!rutgers!orstcs!mist!budd
From: budd@mist.CS.ORST.EDU (Tim Budd)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: first class functions (opps)
Message-ID: <10253@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Date: 28 Apr 89 00:11:33 GMT
Sender: usenet@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU
Lines: 20

oops.

After pondering for ten more minuits after I posted my earlier note about
langauges with first class functions I realized my question was either
unclear or trivially obvious (take your pick). I realized that being able 
to assign functions to variables, return them from functions, and so on 
isn't really the issue.
You can do all that in C, but that doesn't make functional programming in C
similar to functional programming in, say, scheme or ISETL.
Try writing a curry-ing function in C, for example, and you can see what I
mean.  The reason why C functions aren't as useful (in this case) is that
C functions can't be nested, and thus don't have to remember their state.
Nested functions bring on upward and downward funarg problems, but that
isn't the same thing as being able to assign a function to a variable.

so my question boils down to asking for compiled languages that have nested
functions and first class functions, and thus have to deal with funarg
(functional argument) problems; and how they do it.  And actually now that
I think more about it SL5 springs to mind.  Any others?
--(a now red-faced) tim budd;  budd@cs.orst.edu