Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!otter!kers
From: kers@otter.hpl.hp.com (Chris Dollin)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: first class functions (opps)
Message-ID: <2400023@otter.hpl.hp.com>
Date: 3 May 89 10:19:35 GMT
References: <10253@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.
Lines: 29

Young-il Choo says:

| TB> so my question boils down to asking for compiled languages
| TB> that have nested functions and first class functions, and
| TB> thus have to deal with funarg (functional argument)
| TB> problems; and how they do it.  And actually now that I think
| TB> more about it SL5 springs to mind.  Any others? --(a now
| TB> red-faced) tim budd;  budd@cs.orst.edu
|
| The one I know about is Algol 68.
|
| --  Young-il Choo
|
|     choo-young-il@yale.edu
|     Yale Computer Science  New Haven CT 06520-2158

Algol68 doesn't quite have first-class functions. You are not allowed to
export a function out of the extent of the block that declared it,
*especially* if it references locals of the outer block, i.e., the
interesting and useful case.

Ones that do have proper first-class functions include Scheme, Common
Lisp, ML (and any pure functional language worth mentioning), and Pop11.
If you're interested, I can describe how Pop11 does its first-class
functions; I won't burden the whole Net unless I get overwhelmed by
requests.

Regards,    | "Once   I would have been glad   to have made your acquaintance
Kers.       | Now   I feel the danger   brought about   by circumstance."