[comp.lang.misc] On whether Dan has first-class composable functions

oz@yunexus.yorku.ca (Ozan Yigit) (02/08/91)

In article <12547:Feb621:05:4491@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> Daniel J. Bernstein
writes some more:

>Just because the C standard calls certain language objects ``functions''
>doesn't mean that it's impossible to implement functions that don't have
>the same restrictions as those objects.

This discussion has been about those certain language objects (in C)
called ``functions'' from the very start. [1] Do you understand this?
As for implementing C' or C+= or whatever that does not have the same
restrictions on those objects (``functions'') as does C: I think that
would be rather interesting.

>As a matter of fact, it's not only possible, it's trivial.

Just because you have a trivial solution to some problem does not mean
it is the solution to the problem at hand, nor does it imply a correct
solution to said problem is trivial.

>The things that my implementation produced were not C functions, but
>they were full-fledged functions in all respects.

No, they were not C functions, therefore unlike other attempts, they were
[and still are] irrelevant to the discussion.

>		... the problem before was that some people didn't
>like how I said ``C has first-class composable functions'' to mean
>``first-class functions can be implemented in C.''

Actually, some people objected to the absurd re-definition of ``has'' to
bring some legitimacy to your misunderstanding [1] of the topic, or to
belabor the obvious. We have noted that by that amusing re-definition,
C ``has'' Fortran. Furthermore, given that one can program an obnoxious
conversationalist that misunderstands everything that does not match its
limited and mis-initialized dictionary, we can also say C ``has'' Dan.

oz