🚀 go-pugleaf

>Fergus James HENDERSON <fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU> writes:
>>Many people seem to think that the purpose of nested functions is purely
>>as encapsulation, a sort of code organization/modularization feature.
>>... the real reason that they are useful is that ... their addresses can
>>be passed to any function that just expects a function parameter.
>>If a local function never has its address taken, then it does not use
>>the full power of nested functions.

greg@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Greg Noel) writes:
>This is a valid point, but this is exactly the part that is expensive to
>implement.

This is not correct.  Nested functions are not expensive to implement.
I speak as someone who has done it.  Compared to the costs of
programming, and the potential wins (simpler interfaces, less
temptation to use thread/signal-unsafe global variables) nested
functions are a clear win.

>The ``Spirit of C'' is that expensive things are exposed to the
>programmer; C++ inherits much of this spirit.

Is this good or bad?  Does this decrease the cost of
writing/maintaining programs?  Does it make it easier for you to write
reusable code?  Does it lower the rate at which you introduce bugs to
a program?

David Chase
Sun