🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <MARKF.91Mar6122504@montreux.ai.mit.edu> markf@zurich.ai.mit.edu writes:
> In article <R_V9_AC@xds13.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>    In fact, I don't see how a language that isn't interpreted nor object
>    oriented could be said to have first class functions.

> Although it is true that most LISP (and Scheme) and purely functional
> language implementations have interpretors available, there is no
> dependency relation between that fact and the fact that they have
> first class functions.  Nor are most of those languages "object
> oriented".

I suspect that if you remove the explicit interpreter and examined the
remaining language, I will still be able to point to a part of the
language and say "that's the interpreter!". That will be the part that
takes a closure and executes it. In Forth terms, Lisp has an outer and
an inner interpreter.

You might object that this is a Bernsteinian definition of "interpreter",
but I think it is a distinguishing point between languages that have first
class functions and those that don't.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  `-_-'  peter@ferranti.com
+1 713 274 5180.  'U`  "Have you hugged your wolf today?"