Apply a function to each list member?

[Mikael Olofsson]

On 05-Nov-99 Blake Winton wrote:
 >  Speaking as someone who's one language is English, "Probably not".
 >  "map" is really a Lisp/Scheme concept, and bears only a passing
 >  relationship to English.  (Huh, what do ya know, looking up "map"
 >  on http://www.m-w.com/ reveals (in meaning 4) that "map" actually
 >  means "FUNCTION".  I have no idea why they capitalized it.)
 
I guess the terminology originally is taken from mathematics. A map is 
a mathematical concept, similar to a function. Perhaps you should say
that a function is a map, rather than the other way around. Sometimes 
people say a mapping instead of a map. They may also use the word as a 
verb, saying that they map things. Other languages use words meaning 
image or reflection for the same concept. And why not, a (geographical) 
map is an image that reflects reality.

programming-is-doing-math-ly y'rs

/Mikael

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Date:    05-Nov-99
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