Re: dynamic and lexical scope, attempted summary with example

[Michael Heerdegen]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> As always, I think it is easier to discuss in terms of
> an example...

Right, but I think in this case, it's not a good idea to learn that in
passing.  I really recommend to read some literature about it - this
isn't trivial.  Both kinds of scope have their rights to exist and their
use cases.

When I first heard about scope, I though "This does only matter in
situations I avoid".  But lexical scope in a functional language
is a basis of lots of advanced programming techniques.  OTOH, dynamic
scope is as well imperative to programming in LISP.

It's explained e.g. here:

    http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisp.html

There are books easier to read than this, but the chapter about scope is
well understandable without reading the rest, I think.