Cristian Baboi wrote
Lazy constant in C: int C1 (){ return 7; }
Not really, this is not lazy, since it always recomputes the value "7". To have "lazy" values in C you would have to do something like: struct ValueInt { int IsComputed; union { int Value; struct { int (*ComputeValue)(void *args); void* Args; }; }; }; int GetLazyInt (ValueInt* v) { if( !v->IsComputed ) { v->Value = v->ComputeValue(v->Args); v->IsComputed = true; } return v->Value; } But this of course, is totally useless in C and very bulky. It's also impossible to know when to call freemem on the Args (hence garbage collection in FP), when *not* to use lazy values but strict values instead (hence strictness analysis in FP), etc... I must say I had the same opinion as you had for many many years. I always thought "functions as first class values" where just function pointers, so what is it these Haskell/FP guys are so excited about? But if you dig deeper, you'll see the magic... Notice you will have to give yourself some time; it is very hard to get out of the imperative blob. E.g. I'm still being sucked into the imperative blob after my first year of Haskell hacking :) PS: As I'm relatively new to Haskell, don't take the above C code too seriously; it certainly will not reflect the way a real Haskell system works. Peter