Michele Dondi writes:
> On Tue, 29 Jun 2004, Rafael Garcia-Suarez wrote:
> 
> 
> > Difficulties: define "history" of a function w.r.t. threads; closures;
> > and system side-effects (writing to files, locking them etc.)
> 
> 
> On Tue, 29 Jun 2004, Mark A. Biggar wrote:
> 
> > Besides we already have MTOWTDI with local() and hypotheticals.
> 
> (i) I think it's temp() in Perl6, (ii) I don't know what hypotheticals 
> are.

Hypotheticals are those C<let> things from Apocalypse 5.  They are best
illustrated by example:

    my $x = 5;
    try {
        let $x = 10;
        die;         # unsuccessful exit from block
    }
    # $x is 5 again
    try {
        let $x = 10;
    }               # successful exit from block
    # $x is now 10

They're a way of making a hypothesis, and then if that hypothesis leads
to failure, "undoing" the hypothesis since it was false.  It's really
neat stuff.

See Whatif.pm for a Truly Evil Perl 5 implementation of this kind of
thing.  Don't look at the source: you might vomit.

Luke

> Anyway, guys, I'll take your word for it...
> 
> 
> Michele
> -- 
> You know, you would learn a lot more mathematics from a mathematics
> book than from a Mathematica book.
> - Dave Rusin in sci.math, "Re: A Klein Bottle has no inside or outside."

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