Avoiding local variable declarations?

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:49:02 -0800 (PST), dpapathanasiou <denis.papathanasiou at gmail.com> wrote:
...
>> but what's wrong with you original code?
>
> I come from a functional programming school of thought, where you
> avoid local variable declarations if at all possible.

I'm not sure that's universal.  Using Standard ML at Uni, it was often
useful to use "let name = expr in expr" (or whatever the syntax was)
to simplify an expression. Directly borrowed from mathematics, I
assume.

'name' is not a variable, of course; there are no variables in
functional programming. Can't remember what it's called -- named
expression, maybe?

I think I use local names in Python about as much as I did in SML.

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@        Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu
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