🚀 go-pugleaf

jhd@herold.franken.de (Joachim Durchholz) writes:

>tej@world.std.com wrote 22.03.96 on Re: Portability of code & skills (Beware of "C" Hackers etc):

>> I don't remember enough Pascal to know what you mean.  I know you could
>> define a function inside a function, making Pascal block-structured.
>> C can't do that, but of course you can pass functions as arguments of
>> functions.

>The power of this mechanism is that the local function can access local  
>variables of its surrounding function. E.g. in a list processing  
>environment you could write

>  function CountThem (l: List): integer;
>  var Count: integer
>    procedure CountOne (e: ListElement);
>    begin
>      if <some condition on e fulfilled> then begin
>        Count := Count + 1;
>      end;
>    end;
>  begin
>    ApplyOnList (l, CountOne); (* !!!! *)
>    CountThem := Count
>  end;


This is what I call side-effects on a global variable (or variable of
a larger scope).  Its not what I call good programming practice.  In
fact, I see nested procedures as implemented in algol block languages
(automatic importation of variables from larger scopes) as another
stupid idea of CS.  

Jay