Express What, not How.

[james anderson]

ketil+news at ii.uib.no wrote:
> 
> james anderson <james.anderson at setf.de> writes:
> 
> > the last paragraph, which you site above, stand in strange contrast to the
> > remainder of the post.
> 
> Well, the post he replied to, contained:
> 
> | No one is talking about need [to name functions], but about clarity
> | of exposition.
> 
> | It is perfectly possible to program functionally in lisp, as I'm sure
> | you know. It just makes code less readable to use _anonymous_ functions.
> 
> I interpreted this rather as a blanket statement, and one I happen to
> disagree with.

i suggest that the interpretation is not reasonable in the context of the
remainder of that message. i do not quote it here, and will spare one the
explication, but suggest, as one has done for me, that the interested reader
reexamine the text in question for their own edification.

>      Perhaps Raffael meant that anonymous functions *can*
> make code less readable *sometimes*, which we all seem to agree on so
> vehemently?

that is the reasonable interpretation of his position, expecially in light of
his later posts, but also given the original text.

> 
> A bit later, you say in <3F8CFA94.55458D4A at setf.de>
> 
> | i am trying only to understand the implications of an argument
> | which, at least as stated, rather unequivocally deprecates bindings.

to cite the most inexplicable paragraph from the post to which i was
referring, there is a passage

"Why do you insist on naming *functions*? You could equally well say that
every list should be named, so you would see its purpose rather than its
contents. Perhaps every number should be named, so you can see what it
represents rather than its value. You could say that each statement of
a compound statement should be moved to a separate function, so you can
see what it does by its name, not how it does it by its contents. It's
all equally absurd."

which proceeds from an unfounded attribution through equally unfounded
suppositions, to an absurd conclusion. 
> 
> -- a point of view I don't quite see where you picked up.  It is
> certainly not one I've seen advocated seriously by anybody.  And, as
> you say:
> 
> > there is no need to overstate some elses position in order to, in the end,
> > make the same point.

given the rhetorical quality of the paragraph which i cite above, one might
suppose that the reader overlooked it.

...