On Fri, Nov 08, 2002 at 03:04:16PM +0000, Nicholas Clark wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 08, 2002 at 08:22:17PM +1100, Damian Conway wrote:
> > The name of the property is still under debate. Larry favours:
> >
> > sub square ( Num $n ) is same {...}
> >
> > whereas others feel that:
> >
> > sub square ( Num $n ) is memoized {...}
> >
> > is more appropriate.
>
> We're looking for a word that tersely expresses
>has_no_side_effects_and_can_safely_have_its_results_cached_based_on_parameter_types_and_values_and_calling_context
> ?
The functional programmers will tell you that word would be "pure".
Might confuse C++ types, but I think fortran uses it in this context.
> And to people in the perl5 know, Memoize is the module that implements this,
> hence why people who know of how and what Memoize can do favour that name.
> Except that it's not necessarily obvious to everyone else?
I have to admit that I find "memoize" to be a horrible word. The first
time I saw it I thought there was an "r" missing.
> cacheable is rather long and sufficiently made up that my copy of ispell
> doesn't recognise it. But at least all English speakers can agree how to
> spell words that don't end in i[zs]e (or end ou?r or [cs]e :-)
Quite.
--
Paul Johnson - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pjcj.net
