Re: [Caml-list] OCaml's variables

[Siraaj Khandkar <siraaj@khandkar.net>]

On May 24, 2013, at 7:30 PM, oliver <oliver@first.in-berlin.de> wrote:

> On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 11:01:39AM +0200, Arnaud Spiwack wrote:
>> Why were you astounded? This is a perfectly legitimate/correct use of the
>> word "variable".
> [...]
> 
> 
> Do you think so?
> 
> I have thought about making the sentence better, but did not found
> a better sentence in short time.
> 
> But name-value-binding is the term that is used in functional languages.
> I wonder why the term "variable" pops up there.
> And even I understood the sentence, I'm not sure if this might create confusion
> to some readers, because the term "variable" is normally not used for functional languages.
> 
> People new to FP will be said, there are no "variables", and then they maybe
> will be irritated, if they find that term in a reference-manual.
> 
> Do you see what I mean?

If you think of functions as equations, non-constant values are variables.

Imperative languages don't get to claim the term just because they misused it
for a long time ;)

Think of the word "hacker" - it was hijacked and misused for a while, but I
feel like it has mostly been recovered these days. Perhaps we can recover the
accepted meaning of variables if we consistently contrast them with reference
cells.


-- 
Siraaj Khandkar
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