Re: [Haskell-cafe] meaning of "referential transparency"

I have quite a detailed discussion of this concept, and related concepts, in Section 2.8 of my PhD thesis ( https://www.cs.tcd.ie/Edsko.de.Vries/pub/MakingUniquenessTypingLessUnique-sc... ). -E On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 7:13 PM, Kim-Ee Yeoh wrote:

On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 12:43 AM, Henning Thielemann wrote:

...

Can someone enlighten me about the origin of the term "referential transparency"? I can lookup the definition of "referential transparency" in the functional programming sense in the Haskell Wiki and I can lookup the meaning of "reference" and "transparency" in a dictionary, but I don't know why these words were chosen as name for this defined property.

Instead of a immaculately precise definition, may I suggest going about it from the practical benefits POV? RT matters so much in Haskell because of the engineering leverage it gives us. Bird's Pearls are a good source of Why Equational Reasoning Matters.

-- Kim-Ee

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