🚀 go-pugleaf

>In article <4682@osc.COM> jgk@osc.COM (Joe Keane) writes:
>>	conceptually at least, we only need lazy functions.
>>	Lambda calculus and combinators both work this way;
>>	they have no strict functions.

In article <8413@skye.cs.ed.ac.uk> db@lfcs.ed.ac.uk (Dave Berry) writes:
>There is no intrinsic order of evaluation in the lambda calculus.

In discussing a language (e.g. lambda calculus),
I think we must not confuse the absence of an evaluation-order
specification with the belief that all evaluation orders
are equally valid.  A strict language would be one in which
strict evaluation is no less effective than any other order.
With this interpretation, lambda calculus would have to be viewed
as nonstrict.

By the way, does the _formal_ theory of typed lambda calculus accept
constructor-based primitive functions defined via rewrite-rules?
For example, in the lambda-notation of denotational semantics,
one can _force_ any primitive function `f: A->B' to be strict
simply by defining f(BOT_A) = BOT_B.  One can even use this method
to define a strict version of function application.

-- 
	Frank Silbermann	fs@cs.tulane.edu
	Tulane University	New Orleans, Louisiana  USA
--
	Frank Silbermann	fs@cs.tulane.edu
	Tulane University	New Orleans, Louisiana  USA