You think you can Turing?

[chrisbrown]

Turing:

proc map (fcn f (x : real) : real, var arr : array 0 .. * of real)     for i : 0 .. upper (arr)         arr (i) := f (arr (i))     end for end map fcn square (x : real) : real     result x ** 2 end square fcn random (x : real) : real     result Rand.Real () end random proc print (a : array 0 .. * of real)     for i : 0 .. upper (a)         put a (i), " " ..     end for     put "" end print var a : array 0 .. * of real := init (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5); print (a) map (square, a) print (a) map (random, a) print (a) % Sadly, this does not work % map (sin, a)

[DemonWasp]

Very clever.

Interestingly, if you alias sin as another method, for example sine, it works fine. I wonder why Turing won't let you pass built-in methods around, but will let you pass around your own methods.

[TheGuardian001]

That is pretty weird... I can't see any reason why it wouldn't let you pass a built in function... Wonder if it only opposes the trig commands, or all built in functions...

[DtY]

DemonWasp @ Wed Mar 03, 2010 6:35 pm wrote:

Very clever.

Interestingly, if you alias sin as another method, for example sine, it works fine. I wonder why Turing won't let you pass built-in methods around, but will let you pass around your own methods.

Probably something to make the language easier to implement.

[DemonWasp]

Ah, laziness, my constant foe.

[chrisbrown]

If you look at the source, all the builtins are external functions, probably written in C++... Turing's creators didn't even want to use their own language!

Side note: haven't touched Turing in 3 years; after learning other languages, you really notice the flaws in this one.

[DemonWasp]

This holds true in all languages - after going somewhere else, you notice the flaws in your old favourites.

Some languages have their faults more apparent up-front, however.

[[Gandalf]]

On the other hand, after exploring other languages you begin to understand why Turing was designed the way it was, and why many of its shortcomings exist.