Re: The first lambda language to go mainstream ?

[morgon]

There is nothing in JS which couldn't equally be done in Perl with anonymous subs and coderefs. Isn't Perl5 older?

And does not C have function-pointers and is it not even older then Perl?

Who cares?

For me to call JavaScript a "lambda language" is just as ridiculous as calling Perl a "lambda language".

Apart from that Douglas Crockford's book is good though...

[ssandv]

Some searching leads one to the detail that C doesn't have true first-class functions because they aren't nestable, although GCC supports them as an extension, and also because pointer-defined functions don't close over their free variables.

• more here
• and here

[morgon]

You can argue that C does not have first-class functions and I would agree - that was not my point.

The point I was trying to make above is that (in my opinion) having first-class functions is not enough for a language to be called a "lambda language" (meaning functional language).

Otherwise practically every current language would be a "lambda language" and the term would not be very useful.

And so I would argue that the statement about JS being the first mainsteam lambda langues is simply wrong and the question weather it was predated by Perl irrelevant.

[LanX]

> Otherwise practically every current language would be a "lambda language" and the term would not be very useful.

so whats your definition of a lambda language?