Subj : Re: OO compilers and efficiency
To   : comp.programming
From : Chris Dollin
Date : Wed Jul 27 2005 11:30 am

Jon Harrop wrote:

> Chris Dollin wrote:
>> Chris Dollin wrote:
>>> Functional programs have if-then-else. What they don't have is
>>> updatable locations.
>> 
>> Probably I should say that *pure* functional *languages* don't have
>> update. Impure FLs - eg ML, Scheme - have limited update and lots
>> of idioms that don't use it.
> 
> Why do you say "limited" update?

In ML you can update only array elements and the contents of Ref
cells, if I remember correctly. In Scheme, it appears to be part
of the culture rather than the language, but I could easily be
out-of-date.

As opposed to languages where, generally speaking, variables are
expected to, well, vary, unless you take syntactic steps - `const`, 
`final` - to say otherwise. 

-- 
Chris "electric hedgehog" Dollin
predicting self-predictors' predictions is predictably unpredictable.

.