Lambda: The Ultimate Imperative (1976) [pdf]

https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/5790/AIM-353.pdf

by kbp • 7 years ago

80 8 7 years ago

dspace.mit.edu

tombert2• 7 years ago

I love reading these older papers, because since there wasn't a whole lot of prior implicit understanding of computer-science, they're a lot easier to read for a wannabe-intellectual like myself (someone who loves the academic world but who isn't smart enough to actually be an academic).

Guy Steele's papers in particular are almost always an entertaining read. My favorite by him is basically a glorified rant about how the programmer shouldn't have to manually handle tail-recursion (I'd link to it but I cannot seem to find it...If someone here knows where it is I'd appreciate it).

efdb• 7 years ago

LAMBDA: The Ultimate GOTO http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/5753/AIM-443.p...

tombert2• 7 years ago

Thank you!

neilv• 7 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail_call

https://people.csail.mit.edu/jaffer/r5rs/Proper-tail-recursi...

TimSchumann• 7 years ago

Didn’t realize the blog was named after a thing. I guess I feel young now.

kristianp• 7 years ago

Escape Expressions and Fluid Variables? Call by need? Looks like I'll have to read it.

unhammer• 7 years ago

A third possibility would be to pass the SQRT function as an argument to QUAD (don't laugh!)

I was excited to see the heading "3.3.1 Free (Global) Variables", considering the amount of work people do to avoid those (interpeters and runEnv and so on), but it seems they end up using top-level bindings and assignments …

Lambda: The Ultimate Imperative (1976) [pdf]

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