From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Original-To: caml-list@sympa.inria.fr Delivered-To: caml-list@sympa.inria.fr Received: from mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr (mail3-relais-sop.national.inria.fr [192.134.164.104]) by sympa.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 63B3B7EE51 for ; Sun, 26 May 2013 00:44:31 +0200 (CEST) Received-SPF: None (mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of oliver@first.in-berlin.de) identity=pra; client-ip=192.109.42.8; receiver=mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="oliver@first.in-berlin.de"; x-sender="oliver@first.in-berlin.de"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible Received-SPF: None (mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of oliver@first.in-berlin.de) identity=mailfrom; client-ip=192.109.42.8; receiver=mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="oliver@first.in-berlin.de"; x-sender="oliver@first.in-berlin.de"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible Received-SPF: None (mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr: no sender authenticity information available from domain of postmaster@einhorn.in-berlin.de) identity=helo; client-ip=192.109.42.8; receiver=mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr; envelope-from="oliver@first.in-berlin.de"; x-sender="postmaster@einhorn.in-berlin.de"; x-conformance=sidf_compatible X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AnQBABQ+oVHAbSoIlGdsb2JhbABahnO5VYUngQgWDgEBAQEJCwkJFAQkgiMBAQUjVhALCQUKAgIFIQICDwUYMROIDQSrD5EEFoEQjXcHgkEyYQOPB4gzlFI X-IPAS-Result: AnQBABQ+oVHAbSoIlGdsb2JhbABahnO5VYUngQgWDgEBAQEJCwkJFAQkgiMBAQUjVhALCQUKAgIFIQICDwUYMROIDQSrD5EEFoEQjXcHgkEyYQOPB4gzlFI X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.87,742,1363129200"; d="scan'208";a="15691424" Received: from einhorn.in-berlin.de ([192.109.42.8]) by mail3-smtp-sop.national.inria.fr with ESMTP/TLS/DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA; 26 May 2013 00:44:30 +0200 X-Envelope-From: oliver@first.in-berlin.de Received: from first (e178019102.adsl.alicedsl.de [85.178.19.102]) (authenticated bits=0) by einhorn.in-berlin.de (8.13.6/8.13.6/Debian-1) with ESMTP id r4PMiSLb001978 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT); Sun, 26 May 2013 00:44:29 +0200 Received: by first (Postfix, from userid 1000) id B2DBC154066B; Sun, 26 May 2013 00:44:28 +0200 (CEST) Date: Sun, 26 May 2013 00:44:28 +0200 From: oliver To: Kristopher Micinski Cc: Arnaud Spiwack , OCaML Mailing List Message-ID: <20130525224428.GB1958@siouxsie> References: <20130523235355.GI6510@siouxsie> <20130524233015.GE1923@siouxsie> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang_at_IN-Berlin_e.V. on 192.109.42.8 Subject: Re: [Caml-list] OCaml's variables On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 12:53:03PM -0400, Kristopher Micinski wrote: > On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 7:30 PM, oliver wrote: > > On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 11:01:39AM +0200, Arnaud Spiwack wrote: > >> Why were you astounded? This is a perfectly legitimate/correct use of the > >> word "variable". > > [...] > > > > > > Do you think so? > > > > I have thought about making the sentence better, but did not found > > a better sentence in short time. > > > > But name-value-binding is the term that is used in functional languages. > > I wonder why the term "variable" pops up there. > > And even I understood the sentence, I'm not sure if this might create confusion > > to some readers, because the term "variable" is normally not used for functional languages. > > > > People new to FP will be said, there are no "variables", and then they maybe > > will be irritated, if they find that term in a reference-manual. > > > > Do you see what I mean? > > > > > > Ciao, > > Oliver > > I agree with everyone else, this is a completely legitimate use of the > word "variable." > > As a native english speaker who learned OCaml at a younger age, I > don't think the manual should be changed because a beginner might > confuse the term "variable" with the name of the thing in C. > > By the way, when you say: > > > People new to FP will be said, there are no "variables", and then they maybe > > will be irritated, if they find that term in a reference-manual. > > The person saying this will be incorrect for a number of reasons: > 1. OCaml *does* have mutable values, > 2. The type of FP you emphasize would be more correctly (to > disambiguate from OCaml) as purely functional programming [...] Yes, I somehow had a Haskell'ish thinking when looking at the ref-man. But also the examples used there were immutable datastructures. Maybe I need to explore that issue again in more depth (some of the examples in this thread). Ciao, Oliver