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The notion of "dynamically creating functions" is grossly inaccurate. |
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: I agree with the garbage collector guy. When reading the page, you insintictively have the urge to say "hey but C...", yet the text corrects you in time. [[User:Wlievens|Wouter Lievens]] 21:40, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
== The notion of "dynamically creating functions" is grossly inaccurate. ==
The languages mentioned, for the most part, do not have the explicit ability to create functions but to create closures. Functions consist of code, which is typically not dynamically generated or modified. Closures capture the (usually lexically) contectual environment existing at the time of the closure's creation, along with whatever function is associated with the closure. This is, unfortunately, more than a semantic issue - it is explicitely being confused with dynamic code generation, which is given as a comparative example. This technique has nothing in common whatsoever with first order functions.
Of course, removing this "requirement" from the list also means that C DOES have first class functions. If you don't agree with this, I'd recommend including closures as mentioned (which, IMO, are a somewhat different beast), and perhaps anonymous functions as well.
I'd make these changes myself but I don't want to so majorly overhaul this node without some further input.
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