reference to 'self' inside a function

[Timon Gehr]

On 07/19/2012 04:54 AM, Mehrdad wrote:
> On Tuesday, 17 July 2012 at 16:56:17 UTC, angel wrote:
>> I propose to introduce a reference to the current function, much like
>> 'this' in a class method. Call it 'self' or 'thisFunc', or whatever ...
>> What might this be good for ?
>> For implementing recursion in a lambda function.
>> Writing in functional style, one creates many functions, and looking
>> for reasonable names for these functions becomes unnecessarily painful.
>
> Recursive lambdas? o.O
>
> Instead of changing the language, I'd say your situation merits using
> the Y combinator... maybe define Y(f) to be (g => g(g))(g => f(x =>
> g(g)(x)))
> then if you need to define factorial, just say...
> fact = Y(fact => n => n > 0 ? n * fact(n - 1) : 1);
>
>


- D does/can not have full type inference, because the type system with
   templates is Turing complete.

- There is no way this is going to type check even with explicit type
   annotations, because there are no recursive function types.

- Allocation of closures for control flow is not going to work
   efficiently with the current GC.

- D actually has named functions, there is no need to use the anonymous
   lambda based y combinator to make up for the lack of them.