What is Expressiveness in a Computer Language

[Andreas Rossberg]

Marshall wrote:
> 
> What we generally (in programming) call variables are locals
> and globals. If the languages supports an update operation
> on those variables, then calling them variables makes sense.
> But "variable" has become such a catch-all term that we call
> 
>   public static final int FOO = 7;
> 
> a variable, even though it can never, ever vary.
> 
> That doesn't make any sense.

It does, because it is only a degenerate case. In general, you can have 
something like

   void f(int x)
   {
      const int foo = x+1;
      //...
   }

Now, foo is still immutable, it is a local, but it clearly also varies.

- Andreas