Hi Sonne Circa the 1970s and 80s "applicative" was often used in the UK as a synonym for functional, and its coinage dates back to at least Landin's "The Next 700 Programming Languages" paper (1966). I wouldn't bet against "applicative form" being the same thing as "applicative expressions" in Landin's paper, though I have to confess this section goes over my head. I thought I'd read that researchers in the 70s and 80s preferred the term "applicative" over "functional" because "functional" can also be a synonym for "working" (rather than "not-working"), but I'm not sure how how much currency "functional" actually had in those days. I suspect "constant non-applicative form" is a misnomer - I would guess the opposite of "CAF" would be "non-constant applicative form". Best wishes Stephen On 29 January 2018 at 16:21, sonne wrote:

Hi cafe.

I've been trying to make the concept of CAFs get through to me, but the very name is cryptic enough to stupefy me. What does it mean for a thing to be "applicative"? Is it related to the concept of applicative functor (likely not)? What would a constant non-applicative form look like? A non-constant applicative form? An applicative non-form, in the end?

I put a question on Stack Overflow about this, only to discover no one's really sure. I would appreciate either an answer put there right away or a permission to re-post or rephrase an answer there myself, but, if you do mind, I will of course keep the answer private to this mailing list. This is the link to the question: stackoverflow.com/questions/48489778

Thank you!

P.S. I guess this is my first e-mail to this list, so please kindly let me know if it's unfit or in any way out of line. _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list To (un)subscribe, modify options or view archives go to: http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe Only members subscribed via the mailman list are allowed to post.