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In article <1992Aug26.184302.17123@dg-rtp.dg.com>, banksd@hydra.rtp.dg.com (E du^2 + 2F dudv + G dv^2) writes:
|> The discussion of "dope vector"'s etymology reminds me -- what 
|> is the origin of the obligatory "curried add" in lisp examples? 
|> Have you ever encountered this sense of "curry" elsewhere?

Of course this comes from Haskell B. Curry, the American mathematician
and logician who helped make this way of thinking widespread as part
of his (and others') development of combinatory logic.  The act of
currying was invented by Moses Schoenfinkel in 1924. (This comes from
MacLennan's book.)

Guess what else has been done with his name.  Yes, the lazy functional
language Haskell is named for him.

Quel whimsy!

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banksd@hydra.rtp.dg.com wrote:
: The discussion of "dope vector"'s etymology reminds me -- what 
: is the origin of the obligatory "curried add" in lisp examples? 
: Have you ever encountered this sense of "curry" elsewhere?
Haskell B. Curry did quite a bit work in formal logic and lambda calculus, and
thus his name is used for the method to treat multi-parameter functions as
functions of one parameter yielding further functions.

E.g. instead of add x y = x + y  (assume "+" to be primitive here), you could
define          add x   = lambda y . x + y
and             add1    = add 1
by replacement  add1    = lambda y . 1 + y
etc.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Wachowitz, mw@gandalf.ki.fht-mannheim.de, 75742@novell1.rz.fht-mannheim.de
  *  wonder everyday    *    nothing in particular    *    all is special  *

banksd@hydra.rtp.dg.com (E du^2 + 2F dudv + G dv^2) wrote:
> The discussion of "dope vector"'s etymology reminds me -- what 
> is the origin of the obligatory "curried add" in lisp examples? 

Named after Haskell B. Curry.  Coined by David Turner at the time he was
working on SASL.  I've always thought the culinary analogy ought to be
"schongefilte" instead - Schonfinkel invented the idea, not Curry, and
the word suggests removing something rather than, like "currying", adding
extra ingredients.  Schonfinkel's original 1924 paper is translated in
Jean van Heijenoort's "A Source Book in Mathematical Logic".

Incidentally, does "Iliffe vector" predate "dope vector"?  It was the usual
word for the concept in the UK for a long time - did Iliffe use them in
Manchester in the mid-50s?  If so, in what language or machine?

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In article <1992Aug26.184302.17123@dg-rtp.dg.com> banksd@hydra.rtp.dg.com (E du^2 + 2F dudv + G dv^2) writes:

>   The discussion of "dope vector"'s etymology reminds me -- what 
>  is the origin of the obligatory "curried add" in lisp examples? 
>  Have you ever encountered this sense of "curry" elsewhere?
>

    I came across the term "currying" in my Prog. Lang. Course, in 
Scheme and Lambda Calculus. 

It was essentially breaking up say n arguments to a function as n functions
taking one argument each, but both methods producing the same result,

eg

	(lambda (x y z)  body)  

         (lambda (x) (lambda (y) ( lambda (z)  body) body) body)

Ganesh

In article <1992Aug27.160259.15445@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk> jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) writes:
>                   I've always thought the culinary analogy ought to be
> "schongefilte" instead - Schonfinkel invented the idea, not Curry, and
> the word suggests removing something rather than, like "currying", adding
> extra ingredients.

I've always thought of it like currying a horse, not currying a meal.
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In article <1992Aug26.184302.17123@dg-rtp.dg.com> banksd@hydra.rtp.dg.com (E du^2 + 2F dudv + G dv^2) writes:
>The discussion of "dope vector"'s etymology reminds me -- what 
>is the origin of the obligatory "curried add" in lisp examples? 

... comes from a mathematician named Curry !

>Have you ever encountered this sense of "curry" elsewhere?

probably in the litterature about the programming language SPICE ?

M Billaud

PS: Yes, take it with a grain of salt.
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