Ruby and Python

[Erno Kuusela]

>>>>> "graham" == graham  <graham73 at telocity.com> writes:

    graham> Actually it is a big deal. When you do

    graham>     c = a + b

    graham> to construct the object c (say a and b are ints, although
    graham> in this case c isn't an object, but that doesn't change me

(why do you say c isn't an object?)

    graham> point), you don't have to say where you are getting a and
    graham> b from (which environment or namespace or whatever you
    graham> want to call it). But if I want to define a function I do
    graham> have to be explicit about where I am getting objects used
    graham> in the function definition from. So functions are not
    graham> treated like other objects, and hence are not first class.

it is exactly the same. in the "c = a + b" example, variables are only
looked up in the local and global scopes, same as when you are
defining a function. if a or b are in some lexically enclosing scope,
it won't work.

lexical scoping would be cool, otoh it could serve to obfuscate
code... (although not as much as list comprehensions)

  -- erno