Re: the benefits of immutability

[Guy Steele - Sun Microsystems Labs <address@hidden>]

   From: "Joe Marshall" <jrm@ccs.neu.edu>
   To: <vkarvone@mappi.helsinki.fi>
   Cc: "Vadim Nasardinov" <el-vadimo@comcast.net>, "Perry E. Metzger" 
<perry@piermont.com>, <ll1-discuss@ai.mit.edu>
   Subject: Re: the benefits of immutability
   Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 13:19:02 -0400
   
   Hmmm,  a few points off:
   
     1.  When I said `the square root function and the ToString function'
          I intended that those be the `standard' Math.sqrt and Object.toString
          operators.  Although your `toString' and `sqrt' functions do perform
          the appropriate operations, they are essentially arbitrary objects
   with
          the appropriate name, not the functions I asked for.

What, you don't like (inverse) eta conversion?

     2.  The returned object isn't the same kind of thing as Object.ToString,
          or Math.sqrt.
   
     3.  Consider these lines:
          return new Double(Math.sqrt(((Double)a).doubleValue()));}},
          return ((Fn)((Object[])a)[1]).ap(((Fn)((Object[])a)[1]).ap(b));
          System.out.println( ((Fn)(compose.ap(new
   Object[]{sqrt,toString}))).ap(new Double(10)) );
   
          Too many parenthesis.

Let me get this straight: a Lisp programmer complaining
about too many parentheses???

--Guy Steele