------- Forwarded message -------
From: "Cristian Baboi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Jules Bean" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc:
Subject: Re: [Haskell-cafe] Functions are first class values in C
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 15:58:50 +0200
On Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:09:13 +0200, Jules Bean <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Cristian Baboi wrote:
Let me show you an example to prove it.
That's not C.
That's the C preprocessor, which is a textual substitution macro
language.
Well, the preprocessor is part of the language in a way. These two come
together.
Macros certainly aren't first class (you can't pass a macro to a
function, only its expansion).
In Haskell I cannot pass a function to a function, only its expansion.
C does support function pointers, which are something like first class
functions. The main things C lacks which people associate with true
first-class function is:
The ability to construct anonymous/local functions.
If you look at the example you will see I've done that.
The ability to capture local variables and return a function with some
variables bound.
If I can construct "anonymous" functions and "constants", I can construct
functions with some variables bound.
The ability to write type-safe functions with polymorphic arguments.
I didn't know this must be a property of first-class functions.
C is staticaly typed, so type errors will be detected.
Haskell is just C with some syntactic sugar :-)
_______________________________________________
Haskell-Cafe mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
