Comment by agumonkey

10 years ago

You need a term to distinguish non closing over closing functions, hence the closure leakage. Or maybe HOF ?

4 comments

agumonkey

Reply
tel  10 years ago

Functions that don't "close over the environment" are ones that are defined in the null environment. Normally you have

     Gamma, x : a  |-  e : b
    --------------------------
      Gamma  |-  \x -> e : b

But you could also have "bare functions" if you liked

       x : a  |-  e : b
    ----------------------
      .  |-  \x -> e : b

This would force all names to be explicitly applied, I think.

  • agumonkey  10 years ago

    The use of 'closure' is an idiomatic shortcut to express that.

    • tel  10 years ago

      Sort of. It's also a didactic method to talk about it and it often is quickly followed with people talking about stack pointers or environment frames. You can blur the lines if you like, but I find it tends to pay to be precise here.