From: Sean O'Dell <sean@...>
Date: 2004-07-14T08:29:53+09:00
Subject: Re: Functional Ruby (Re: Why I don't use Ruby.)

On Tuesday 13 July 2004 16:12, Florian Gross wrote:
> Sean O'Dell wrote:
> >
> > I just found a great primer on FP, and I think I have either forgotten a
> > lot of it from my LISP days, or LISP never had these FP features I'm
> > reading about.  This is really a very authoritative, clear and concise
> > explanation:
> >
> > 	http://www.cs.nyu.edu/goldberg/pubs/gold96.pdf
>
> Heh, I actually meant to say what's written there on the first page with
> all that "variables are just aliases" speech.
>
> If you intended to say this, too, then we're already agreeing here. :)

Well, I was talking about variables, but I realized after looking at that 
primer that I think most people were talking about "macros" or, at least, 
that's what I remember calling them.  It's been a long time, and LISP was my 
only exposure to FP, really.  I think I was mis-understanding some of the 
terms people were using.

> (Which means that this special aliasing assignment can be done via an
> operator-style syntax or a function-call-style syntax. This also means
> that operators and functions are actually the same things with different
> syntaxes. :))
>
> Oh, and I think that let x = y is actually an operator-style syntax.

It sure is; I think I just got a really skewed version of FP in my head.

	Sean O'Dell