From: Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com>
Subject: "Misunderstanding of the lambda calculus"
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 00:42:16 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87bqxva8uf.fsf@stupidchicken.com> (raw)
This may amuse some of the readers of this mailing list. While
browsing the Wikipedia entry on lambda calculus, I saw that some wit
had written:
Lisp uses a variant of lambda notation for defining functions, but
only its purely functional subset is really equivalent to lambda
calculus. Strictly speaking, this holds only for modern dialects of
Lisp, such as Common Lisp and Scheme. More archaic Lisps, such as
Emacs Lisp, still use dynamic binding, and so are not based on the
lambda calculus. Rather, they are based on the syntax of the lambda
calculus, together with a misunderstanding of the notion of binding
and substitution in the lambda calculus.
next reply other threads:[~2006-01-29 5:42 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 15+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2006-01-29 5:42 Chong Yidong [this message]
[not found] <E1F3FdP-0002xe-OW@monty-python.gnu.org>
2006-01-29 17:51 ` "Misunderstanding of the lambda calculus" Jonathan Yavner
2006-01-29 18:32 ` David Kastrup
2006-01-30 18:46 ` Richard M. Stallman
2006-01-30 19:28 ` David Kastrup
2006-01-31 18:03 ` Richard M. Stallman
2006-01-31 19:47 ` Kevin Rodgers
2006-01-31 20:09 ` Stefan Monnier
2006-02-01 19:38 ` Richard M. Stallman
2006-01-31 21:57 ` David Kastrup
2006-02-01 8:12 ` Alan Mackenzie
2006-02-01 8:52 ` David Kastrup
2006-02-01 10:40 ` Miles Bader
2006-02-01 15:01 ` Jonathan Yavner
2006-02-01 19:39 ` Richard M. Stallman
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