Thank you for the correction. I will be more careful in the future.
On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 1:08 PM, Matthias Felleisen <matth...@ccs.neu.edu>wrote: > > No problem. > > While we are on names. We use > -- "Matt" for Matthew Might, a Utah researcher who also uses Racket; > -- "Matthew" for Matthew Flatt, the CEO of PLT Design, Inc, creator of > Racket, and ruler of the kingdom > -- "Matthias" for me, which yes, is a form of Matthew (used in Germanic > and Hispanic contexts with various spellings). > > > > > > > On Aug 28, 2013, at 1:02 PM, Alexander McLin wrote: > > Thank you for the illuminating primer, Matt. I hadn't realized that it was > such a questionable term. > > > > > On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 12:54 PM, Matthias Felleisen <matth...@ccs.neu.edu > > wrote: > >> >> On Aug 28, 2013, at 12:33 PM, Grant Rettke wrote: >> >> > On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 11:04 PM, Matthias Felleisen >> > <matth...@ccs.neu.edu> wrote: >> >> For the record, there is no such thing as 'applicative order.' There >> is call-by-value and there is a humongous misunderstanding >> >> called 'applicative order' >> > >> > When authors use this term what do they cite as being the >> > authoritative source? How did people come up with using the term? >> >> >> A short history of PL and LC and evaluation order: >> >> * 1960ish: people discover the lc as a model of pl. But the lc by itself >> is not a pl, and they know that. For example, you can encode arithmetic in >> lc but that's bad. They also understand that lc per se does not nail down >> an evaluation function. For pragmatic reasons, it is clearly wrong to define >> >> eval[[ e ]] = the normal form of e according to beta >> >> Otherwise you get infinite loops when the programs that you >> >> * over the he following decade: people make two different compromises: >> >> [1] they stop evaluating when they find a lambda but otherwise use beta >> >> [2] they evaluate the argument before they evaluate a function >> application >> Algol 60 introduces the by-value variant as >> A(int x) value x; as short for A(int x); x := x; >> with the understanding that := is strict on the rhs. >> >> * in parallel: mathematicians think that this is about a strategy for >> evaluation lambda terms and explore a whole range of evaluation strategy. >> An ES is a function from a lambda term with at least one beta redex to a >> specific beta redex. Applicative order is one of these. >> >> * 1970ish: People begin to understand that 'applicative' does not address >> the termination issue. Confusion reigns. >> >> * 1973: Plotkin writes the definitive paper on the issue of relating LC >> to notions of CBName and CBValue. It appears in TCS: >> >> Call-by-name, call-by-value, and the lambda calculus. >> >> It shows how the idea of evaluation order and the idea of a calculus >> relate to each other and sets out general criteria. Then it shows that two >> different calculi relate to the specified evaluation function according to >> these criteria. >> >> * I later showed in my dissertation that these criteria also apply to >> extensions of the model with assignment and control. >> >> * Crank and I followed up with a paper that shows how Plotkin's criteria >> scale to call-by-reference/pass-by-worth, call-by-copy-in/out, etc. So >> Plotkin's criteria are neither whimsical nor a fluke. It is possible to >> work out this connection for any combination. >> >> * In a nutshell, however, the idea of evaluation strategy for LC relates >> to the idea of evaluation order in PLs only in a highly superficial manner. >> >> * Sadly SICP continues to propagate this misunderstanding and people keep >> for falling for it because the book is intriguing in other ways. >> >> So if you wish to connect LC and PL and speak about order, please study >> the above citations. The whole discussion is summarized in the first part >> of the REDEX book (see redex.racket-lang.org). >> >> -- Matthias >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> ____________________ >> Racket Users list: >> http://lists.racket-lang.org/users >> > > >
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