On Mon, Dec 21, 2015 at 4:57 AM, Darren Grant <dedgrant@gmail.com> wrote:

On Dec 20, 2015 08:39, "Rustom Mody" <rustompmody@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 1:43 AM, Rein Henrichs <rein.henrichs@gmail.com> wrote:

Mr. McIlroy,

FWIW I would love to read more about that McCarthy talk. It
sounds like an amazing experience.

No I was not there (in more than one sense!) when that talk happened

About the power of scheme being under-appreciated (even by the authors of SICP!)

http://blog.languager.org/2013/08/applying-si-on-sicp.html

Lacking intentional syntax for function application is much more profound than I would have expected.

Not sure what you mean: Scheme does not have intentional syntax for function application.

Neither does Haskell.

Both have a reified (or first-classed) function for function-application. Scheme pronounces it 'apply'. Haskell pronounces it '$'

This is close but not quite the same as an explicit application syntax:

Close because if we have

foo x = 2*x

we can write

Prelude> foo $ (2+5)
14

or

Prelude> foo (2+5)
14

Not quite the same because the definition of foo cannot be 'explicitized' to

foo$x = 2*x