From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2000-07-19T13:36:10-05:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:04132] Re: Function objects. was: What are you using Ruby for?

Johann Hibschman <johann@physics.berkeley.edu> writes:

> > One of the things about functions is that referencing one in a
> > pure OO language requires that you at some point bind it to an
> > object. A function on its own means nothing. Take the humble '+'
> > operator, for instance. Send it to a number, and you get addition;
> > send it to a string, concatenation.
> 
> This does seem a bit weird to me, though.  A function is a function
> is a function.  It's a mapping from a domain space to a range space.
> As such it's as real as anything.

True, but then again 'f' amd '+' are not functions but names: the
underlying functions are accessible via these names. In object-
oriented languages, the binding of names to the corresponding
functions is often deferred: even in more static languages such as C++
you can't tell the meaning of

   a = b + c

without knowing the types of a, b, and c.

Regards


Dave