From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/159 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Ellis D. Cooper" Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Functions in programming Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:52:31 -0400 Message-ID: Reply-To: "Ellis D. Cooper" NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1237127070 12211 80.91.229.12 (15 Mar 2009 14:24:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:24:30 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Sun Mar 15 15:25:46 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from mailserv.mta.ca ([138.73.1.1]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1LirHe-0003Nc-6m for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:25:46 +0100 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1LiqSB-0006jt-Sk for categories-list@mta.ca; Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:32:35 -0300 Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:159 Archived-At: To Andrew Stacey - My take on your question is that in programming, functions correspond in mathematics to partially defined functions. A properly coded programming function must either return the result of a computation for given inputs, or return a signal that the programming function is not defined on the inputs provided. The empty mathematical function would correspond to the programming function that returns that "undefined" signal for all inputs whatsoever. Ellis D. Cooper