Re: Harp Pedals?

[Daniel Hulme]

On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 02:46:31AM -0300, Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote:
> Lambda calculus is the reason that lambda is called like that, but it
> is as bad a name as cons/cdr/car.  Scheme is a cleaned up version of
> LISP, but they left those warts in.

Why is it a bad name? Scheme is a programming language. Its users are
programmers. Programmers (at least the good ones) know what the lambda
calculus is, so know to expect anonymous functions when they see "lambda".

Anonymous functions are, whatever keyword you use to make them happen,
still something the user of the programming language needs to learn to
use. Using "lambda" means that people who have never heard of the lambda
calculus (who are not the primary users) need to learn something new.
Not using "lambda" would mean that *everyone* needs to learn something
new.

Anyway, don't forget that in the simple case where your anonymous
function doesn't use any variables other than its parameter, you can
just use a named function instead, and avoid "lambda" completely. That
is, if you can rewrite your anonymous function so it looks like

  (lambda (a b c ...) (some-function a b c ...))

you can replace it with

  some-function

You might have to write some-function yourself. (Note that the ... means
it doesn't matter how many parameters you have, it's not a part of the
syntax.)

-- 
It's so hard to see the Sun with the truth in your eyes.
http://surreal.istic.org/                      Krogoths are for defence.

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