Re: [Bug-apl] D-fn binding leackage, Nested d-fns

[Juergen Sauermann]

Hello Daniel,

I would like to explain my point of view regarding Lambdas aka. D-funs.

Initially I considered them as not needed; they are not defined in the APL
standard and the rules related to them seem to be rather unclear.

After seeing some requests to support them I started thinking about this
and I figured that they could be somewhat elegant in particular when
used with the EACH operator.

There are still things related to lambdas that I don't like at all because I
believe that they obscure the APL language more than they help.

For example, IMHO the following is definitely unfortunate (even though
possibly convenient and supported in some APL interpreters):

- having different binding rules in lambdas than in normal APL functions,
- "guards" like :IF in lambdas
- probably more...

Nested lambdas are sort of on the border - I could look into this if you
have a convincing example. A good specification of lambdas would also help.
In the meantime you can work around this by eg:

A←{⍵} ◊ {⍵+A 1}1

In GNU APL lambdas create normal user-defined functions and normally follow
their rules. That's why x becomes visible in your example, and IMHO this 
makes
more sense than hiding x in lambdas but not in user-defined functions.

/// Jürgen


On 03/02/2014 11:53 AM, Daniel H. Leidisch wrote:
> Hello!
>
> Bindings from inside d-fns/lambdas leak into the global environment:
>
>        x
> VALUE ERROR
>        x
>        ^
>        {x←⍵}1
> 1
>        x
> 1
>
> I didn't read much about this, but as far as I understand, bindings
> introduced in these functions are supposed to be lexical locals. Anyway,
> this doesn't happen in NARS2000, Dyalog and NGN.
>
>
> Regards,


On 03/02/2014 11:56 AM, Daniel H. Leidisch wrote:
> Hello!
>
> Nesting d-fns doesn't seem to work:
>
>        {⍵+{⍵}1}1
> DEFN ERROR
>
> This works in NARS2000, NGN and Daylog. I'm at r148.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Daniel