Let's Talk About Lambda Functions!

[Bryan Olson]

James J. Besemer wrote:
> Bryan Olson wrote:
> 
> > James J. Besemer wrote:
> >  > Lambda and the Lambda Calculus have nothing to
> >  > do with "control structures," per se.
>  
> > That strikes me as failure to abstract.  Lambda can emulate any of the
> > control structures, and the control structures can all be described as
> > functions from states to states.
> 
> We're talking the difference between Imperative and
> Declarative languages which are radically different.

No, we're talking about Python and lambda.


> Closer to the real world, it's like you're saying there's nothing
> in Python that can't be done in C++ or Perl or even assembler.

Close.  In a discussion "Lets Talk about Lambda Functions" someone 
claimed that all control structures boil down to if, for, and while. Not 
so.  Particularly relevant to this discussion: lambda is as powerful as 
all of them, and pre-dates them too.


--Bryan