Re: [Caml-list] ocaml and concurrency

[Brian Hurt <bhurt@spnz.org>]

On 31 Jan 2004, skaller wrote:

> On Fri, 2004-01-30 at 17:52, Brian Hurt wrote:
> > On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Martin Berger wrote:
> > 
> > > > Perhaps because you're a type theorist? <g>
> > > 
> > > being a type theorist has many disadvantages ...
> > > 
> > > > C not only *does* have function types, it has
> > > > first class function values just like ML does.
> > > 
> > > well, i'm not so sure about this for two reasons.
> > 
> > Technically, he's correct.  What C doesn't have is partial function 
> > application, 
> 
> If by that you mean currying .. well, of course C has that.
> If a function returns a function which returns a function
> you can curry exactly like in ML :-)

Yuck.  Yes, I suppose you could do that- but I say again, yuck.  A simple 
function, which in Ocaml would have the type int -> int -> int ->int, 
would have the C prototype:
((int (*)(int)) (*)(int)) foo(int);

Something reasonably, but not unheard of, complicated, like say:
('a -> 'b -> 'c) -> 'a array -> 'b array -> 'c array
would be (ignoring the type safety issue):

(((void **) (*)(void **))(*)(void **))foo(void * (*)(void *) (*)(void *));

That's like something out of a submission to the IOCCC.  Not that the 
uncurried version is that much better:

void ** foo(void * (*)(void *, void *), void **, void **);


> 
> > which makes having functional types much less worthwhile- 
> > it's impossible for a function type to also contain state.  
> 
> Almost, but not quite true:
> 
> 	int f(int x) {
> 		static int y = x;
> 		y = y + x;
> 		return x;
> 	}
> 
> clearly does contain state.. the function isn't
> re-entrant though (which means merely not
> thread safe here since it manifestly isn't recursive).

It's not only not re-entrant, it doesn't do what my example does.  Here, I
can have only one sum ever.  My example allows to me have multiple
different sums simultaneously- and adding to one doesn't add to the
others.  The C++ example kicking around that uses objects is more correct.  
Which is one way to do it in C- fake objects, and then used the faked
objects to fake partial application.

> 
> However it is true in Haskell and any purely
> functional Ocaml code .. they really cannot contain
> any state :-)

No, even then they can contain state, they just can't change it.  But it 
can be different from one partial application to another.

A purely functional example:

let logb base x = (log x)/.(log base);;

let log10 = logb 10.;;

let log2 = logb 2.;;

let logn = logb (exp 1.);;

Here I have three different functions- but all of them contain functional 
state- the base of logarithms I'm working in.

> 
> Indeed, one can go further and say that ML functions
> are a lie: if you consider:
> 
> 	let f x = 
> 		let g y = y + x in g
> 	in 
> 		let g1 = f 1
> 		and g2 = f 2
> 
> then the two g's are distinction functions, they're
> NOT the 'g' defined in f, which in fact is NOT
> a function at all, merely an abstraction (of course
> g1 and g2 are functions .. :)

f has a type int -> int -> int here, so f 1 has the type int -> int.  
Looks like a function to me.  The question is: what is a function?

-- 
"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive,
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                                - Gene Spafford 
Brian

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