On 2008 Oct 13, at 2:58, Matthew J. Williams wrote:
Hello listers, would one be correct in thinking that 'bound variables' such as those used in haskell were in fact constants?
Only in certain limited circumstances. Consider the following:
let x = f x in x
This finds the least defined fixed point of f. See < http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/Fix_and_recursion
.
Top level constant applicative forms (that is, bindings without arguments) with monomorphic types can generally be considered to be constants, and the compiler may assume this and inline it. But it's not required to do so. -- brandon s. allbery [solaris,freebsd,perl,pugs,haskell] allbery@kf8nh.com system administrator [openafs,heimdal,too many hats] allbery@ece.cmu.edu electrical and computer engineering, carnegie mellon university KF8NH