Alexis Lee alexis@turton.com writes:

I'm moving to stick this on social.

Followed.

OK, I can see why it's a pain having to reference and dereference by hand. Does first-class mean that references are constructed autom., or that the thing can be copied? I see no point in copying a thing unless it can be altered.

It means that you can do whatever you like with it, just as any other variable, pretty much.

And if the point is to be able to create a copy of a function which can be altered, what's wrong with (let ((a "display") (b "hello")) (eval list(a " " b)) ) (or equivalent written in non-babytalk Scheme).

If you're using eval with user input, you have serious problems.

True, Java isn't being shipped with IE6, it's an installable component. But I believe Mozilla still has it.

No, it's a downloadable component in current moz.

And Java is apparently achieving massive growth in the embedded/handheld device markets.

"Massive growth" is probably apt given Java's famous memory requirements. Well, there are scheme interpreters too, and they're easier and smaller to create.

It has the massive advantage of being structural (or procedural or whatever I'm meant to call it... Cish), which is how most people learn to think when they're taught to program.

Only in the UK and it doesn't make it right.

Incidentally, if you do this: (begin (define function1 (lambda (x) (...))) (define function2 (lambda (x y) (...))) (function1 2.5) (display (function2 3.8 "Hello")) ) doesn't that look rather structural? I'm really struggling to get a grip on this functional stuff.

Yes, but the power comes if you don't do bad cohesion like that and you compose functions. I very rarely use begin... The time when I do is when I'm trying to interface with something procedural, such as a database.

...

Huh? My personal site is entertainingly broken at the moment (try it in moz), but I don't recall there being any non-relative internal URLs on it, as that's a pet hate of mine.

http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ from your sig. Left nav bar. Moz 0.9.2.

I see no relative links. You do know the towers.org.uk thing is a redirect? (Anyone else want one?)