Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mimsy!oddjob!hao!noao!arizona!gudeman
From: gudeman@arizona.edu (David Gudeman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Software Reuse  --  do we really know what it is ?
Message-ID: <1796@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: Fri, 3-Jul-87 15:22:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: megaron.1796
Posted: Fri Jul  3 15:22:36 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Jul-87 05:36:15 EDT
References: <8706160502.AA26398@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Distribution: world
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 16
In-reply-to: adams@crcge1.UUCP's message of 2 Jul 87 07:55:43 GMT


In article <2637@crcge1.UUCP> adams@crcge1.UUCP (Drew Adams) writes:

   ...  Hughes finds that the importance of functional languages is
   that they allow program modularisation in ways which imperative
   languages cannot.  To quote again:

	   ... functional languages provide two new, very important
	   kinds of glue [(higher order functions and lazy
	   interpretation)]....  This is the key to functional
	   programming's power - it allows greatly improved
	   modularisation...

Any language with functions can have higher order functions, and any
language with the concept of `arguments' can have lazy evaluation of
them.  So how can these features be called advantages of functional
programming?