Refactoring in Tunes

[Massimo Dentico]

btanksley@hifn.com wrote:
 
> > From: Francois-Rene Rideau [mailto:fare@tunes.org]

[...]

> > For any "refactoring" trick, you can find a decomposition of it into
> > nice and general metaprogramming rules. Massimo already talked about
> > lambda-abstraction and beta-expansion: concepts indeed difficult to
> > express if at all in languages such as C, C++, Java, but trivial in
> > functional programming languages such as LISP, FORTH, ML,
> > Haskell, etc.
> 
> ...and irrelevant to computer science in general.  Lambda calculus has been
> a huge drag on computer science (I assert), and the sooner we get rid of it,
> the better.  I posted a link to the 'Joy' page a bit earlier; take a look
> for a study of computation theory completely without lambda calculus.
> 
> > The fact that such operations be done before runtime leads us in the realms
> > of "partial-" or staged evaluation. Combining them leads us to substitution,
> > and finding the right substitution is unification (which can get pretty
> > difficult for higher-order terms).
> 
> And none of this is relevant without lambda calculus.  Pretty neat, huh?

Lambda  calculus and unification not relevant to computer  science
in general? Bill, this is an hazardous statement. :o)

Seriously,  too often lambda calculus is presented as an  esoteric
subject,  but  it's  not  so  complicated  (at  least  the   basic
principles): it talks about function application and  with  lambda
notation  you  are not forced to name a function.  Next  step  (in
semplification)  are combinators that avoids  variables,  like  in
Forth.   As  noticed  from  Henry  Baker  in  "Linear  Logic   and
Permutation Stacks -- The Forth Shall Be First", p. 5:

HTML - ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hb/hbaker/ForthStack.html
or Postscript - ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hb/hbaker/ForthStack.ps.Z

==================================================================
FORTH IS A SYSTEM OF LINEAR COMBINATORS

Combinatory  logic  [Curry58]  is a  logical  structure  which  is
closely related to the lambda calculus [Church41]. Lambda calculus
talks  about  names and substitutions in expression  trees,  while
combinatory  logic achieves the same "computations",  but  without
needing any names. [my note: but performing substitutions]

[...]
Most Forth operators take their operands from the top of the stack
and return their values to the top of the stack. A persual of this
Forth  code  reveals  the  absence  of  variable  names  which  is
characteristics of combinators. The programming of Forth operators
can  therefore  be seen as the construction of larger  combinators
from   smaller  ones.  A  Forth  which  incorporates  only   stack
permutation operations like swap, rotate and roll must be  linear,
because it has no copying or killing operators.

[...]
==================================================================

Moreover,   the  principal  data  structure  of  most  lamda-based
functional languages, the list, is isomorphic to (is substantially
the same as) the principal data structure of Forth, the stack. The
underlying implementation of some (many?) functional (and probably
logic)  languages is based on combinators, while Forth shows  that
is praticable to program directly with combinators  (and with RPN,
Reverse Polish Notation).

The  interesting (at the first look) link about Joy, that you  had
post here, says that it's based on combinators (even).

Unification is a fundamental mechanism in Prolog (permit procedure
invocation,  from a procedural point of view), in languages  based
on   term  rewriting  and  functional  languages.  It  allow  type
inference.   An  ad-hoc  mechanism  of  unification  is   "regular
expressions".

In  my  not  so  humble opinion (I'm joking, of course  ;-)  these
subjects are not irrelevant. But I'm always open to new ideas.

Besta regards,

-- 
Massimo Dentico