Re: Named lambdas

[JONL at PARC-MAXC]

In response to the message sent  Monday, 22 November 1982  17:52-EST from MOON@SCRC-TENEX

I like this analysis in your reply -- it finally puts some
sense into what has been a confusing notion, namely "nameing"
of functions.

If I may paraphrase, "functions" in the computer sense, i.e.
compiled-code objects, lambda expressions, closures, etc, may
have a name which is independent of any symbol to which that
"function" has been assigned (by fdefinition).  The name is more
like commentary on the code body, and would be helpful in
debugging.  Thus we could have 500 functions with  the "name"
FOO, and have 500 symbols all with the "same function" as
their functional definition.

Assignment of functions to symbols, via fdefinition, is a tool
of programming syntax, and nameing of functions is a tool of
user commentary?