Re: Vectors as functions

[Michael Vanier <address@hidden>]

> From: Bruce Lewis <brlewis@alum.mit.edu>
> Date: 15 Aug 2003 14:10:11 -0400
> 
> Michael Vanier <mvanier@cs.caltech.edu> writes:
> 
> > I'm thinking of situations where you might have a list of symbols
> > representing names (or first-class names) and you might want to set their
> > values to a given value, like mapping set! over the list of names.  Not
> > having names as first-class entities makes that unduly hard.
> 
> If you're sure you want to do it this way, and not use a hash table to
> deal with names at run time, then you probably want Common Lisp.
> 

How would you use a hash table to deal with names at run time?

[To Mike Sperber] Does "set" in common lisp destroy lexical scoping?  I'm
not sure exactly what you were getting at, although I dimly understand that
there could be a problem.

I feel like first-class environments a la MIT scheme are also relevant to
this discussion, but I don't really know much about them.  Any MIT schemers
want to comment?

I guess the bottom line is: how much freedom to mess around with the local
environment is consistent with lexical scoping?

Mike